Scorpio: The Blood Saga
by sadistic dreamkiller
Summary: "Pain? You think that's love?" Itachi brusquely asked Konan. "Do you even know what that means?" —Part 8: Veins of Fire—
1. Disregard Imagination

(Re-Edited Version)

Since there's so little people in this fandom… well, decided this might be at least a decent fic. And in some way it feeds my addiction and keeps me sane to write. Crack pairings are so awesome, aren't they? TemarixHidan & KonanxItachi FTW!

But first, let me be clear. As hard as it will be to build up their characters, NO, Itachi and Konan do not like each other at the start (this chapter included).

**Disclaimer:** Naruto not mine.

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**Scorpio: Blood Saga of the Dead War  
**Part I: Disregard Imagination

_"Heaven and earth may crack and fall, but you will never touch me."_

* * *

"Oh, that was stupid of us."

In the heavy rain Konan sighed, pushing wet bangs out of her eyes and silently agreeing with the masked man. Tobi was right, and it didn't help all of them were getting soaked in the downpour, mixed with the tropical, humid climate of Leaf.

They all knew at the start this wasn't going to be an easy task, but letting it end like this…? With all of them in the group being powerful, S-class criminals, it was supposed to be a no-brainer they would succeed. Only with an incredibly rotten twist of fate, they failed.

"We need to regroup," she said, speaking up for the first time since they arrived, looking toward her partner.

Pain merely nodded, the spiked hair of his current body curving down from the weight of the water it had gathered. Tobi and Deidara, the other two people in their faction with them, agreed, the former nodding enthusiastically and the blond grunting a forced "Fine."

**ooo000ooo**

As they walked through the cobbled streets, street water entering their open-toed sandals, Konan couldn't help but wonder how everything had gone hellishly wrong. They were supposed to enter the hidden village, lock it down, and then take the Kyuubi's jinchuuriki.

_Easy as shit_, she knew Hidan would have said had he still been with them. Only he wasn't, because the zombie brothers were already dead for some time, and Kakuzu was killed by that blond brat himself. The other immortal, someone who wouldn't die no matter what happened to him, must have been decimated by someone, sliced into a hundred different pieces and hidden somewhere far away or scattered like confetti. There was no chance they'd be back any time soon.

The very reason they didn't have the Kyuubi's jinchuuriki in their hands was a stupid mistake on her and the Leader's part. Apparently, there had been a leak. A small one, but a leak nonetheless. A ninja in Hidden Rain had been kidnapped and tortured by ANBU, and thus the little tidbit of information that they were planning to invade a village was extracted. Leaf prepared in advance and Naruto had been hidden.

Ever since they discovered that, Akatsuki knew they would have a hard time finding him. The village was known to have plenty of allies who might agree to hide the precious jinchuuriki.

"Leader-sama, maybe we're lucky," said Tobi.

Even with his innocent childlike acts, his form towered over Pain beside him.

"What do you mean _lucky_?" demanded Deidara, his blond hair disheveled from the rain and the recent fight with the Leaf ninja who responded to their attack. "We don't have the stupid jinchuuriki, un!"

"Tobi's right," replied her partner, "the Hokage was not here when we attacked. And so was Jiraiya."

"I don't see the point," replied the blond, scowling that he had taken his partner's side and not his. "We could have blasted them into outer space, they're old bags anyway."

"Deidara-sempai, please don't talk like that to Leader-sama–"

"The sannin were not given that title for no reason," said their leader, ignoring Deidara's insolence.

Konan tried to ignore the whines of the blond, Tobi's pleading for him to stop arguing with Pain, and her partner's comments every now and then as he patiently explaining things to the other two. Being the only female in their group, ignorant people thought her a token. Sometimes even, and this made her blood boil, a comfort woman.

But she knew this particular group of men (although it was clear some of them were still considered boys) were never the type to be running after girls they thought were pretty. They all had other things in mind they held as far more important. The honor of being in the limelight belonged to Pain, whom everyone referred to as "Leader-sama". Although, behind closed doors, they both would be taking orders from Tobi.

She resented him for that, silently watching the masked figure beside her partner. She didn't like him at all.

She was merely thought of as their leader's right hand and would follow his orders without regard for her own decisions. Or so they thought, because she was supposed to be the meek and perfectly obedient doll. Nagato valued her opinions and saw her on equal footing, and she would only voice her doubts when they were the only people around.

Through whispers of passing subordinates or simple eavesdropping, she knew their villagers and people who didn't know them thought of her as Pain's lover. Sometimes it angered her that they could think such things about him. They weren't blood relatives, but the hurt hadn't subsided yet over Yahiko's passing.

Secretly, though, deep down inside, somewhere along the line she had fallen in love with him. Konan would never admit that to anyone, and kept it that way because she knew Nagato never thought of her the same. To him, she was simply the loyal friend. The one to take care of because he was asked to.

With everything that she had gone through with him, all those hardships they managed to overcome, she wasn't expecting any other possibility of anyone else catching her interest, because when Yahiko died, and she had vowed to be by Nagato's side all her life. She promised him she would do everything she could for his goals. His presence was all that she asked from him, and that in itself had to be more than enough.

Little did she know that with this new undertaking of Akatsuki, she might learn something new about her mismatched group of strange men.

"Goddamn it, it's been raining in your village, it's been raining on our way here, and when we arrive, it's still raining! Can't you do something about this?" complained Deidara, ripping off his wet, heavy robe and pulling it over his head to use as a shield against the water pellets.

"Bear with it," replied Pain.

They were nearing the foot of the Hokage mountain, on top of which was the tower where they were supposed to meet with the others at. The water running down the faces carved into the stone eerily looked like tears, creating the impression that all the five Kages of the village were lamenting its loss of control.

Having Kakuzu and Hidan dead, along with Orochimaru who had run off around a decade ago, there were only seven of them left in the organization. Seven strong, if she may add, because even with their dwindled numbers, all of them were capable of the utmost destruction, greater than even the sannin.

The others in the group may believe that Tobi was nothing more than a dimwitted dud, but she and Pain knew what kind of person he was, and believed otherwise. Of course, no one would underestimate the originator of the Uchiha clan, as he claimed himself to be.

With a burst of her chakra, millions of sheets of rustling paper flew through the air and formed the wings that had made her known as Pain's angel, beating powerfully as she took to the air alongside the others, their black forms nimbly leaping from the mountainside up to the building that dangled over the steep edge.

**ooo000ooo**

Pain landed on the windowsill directly behind the Hokage's desk with a heavy thump, his wet cloak sharply smacking against the wood, followed by Deidara and Tobi loudly coming to rest beside him and dropping down to the floor in the squelch of wet shoes and rustling of wet clothes.

"Where's Kisame?" he immediately asked.

"Took a piss," replied Zetsu's black side in its gruff voice, slowly turning around to see the newcomers from his spot above a window.

She soared through a window and alighted somewhere to the right of desk, beside Pain who had no qualms taking the Hokage's chair. Her origami dissipated into the air as she withdrew her chakra, yet what she immediately noticed was the Uchiha sitting opposite her on the other side of the room, still brooding like he always did.

There were actually very few instances where she noticed Itachi during the time she knew him. He was the type to be of little words and inane actions, during the even fewer chance encounters in person just nodding a greeting to her and going about his way. It was why she felt more than a little compelled to ignore him outright this time.

"Look what I found!" interrupted a booming, gravelly voice.

A girlish scream pierced the air and everyone turned to look as the doors banged open, Kisame marching in with a Leaf ninja in tow, dragging him by the back of his shirt and throwing him bodily to the middle of the room, in front of all of them. Leaning on the side of the desk with her arms crossed, she calmly gazed down at the man who was wearing the uniform of a Leaf chuunin, aware that all the others had the same piqued interest. He was wildly looking around at all of them, extremely frightened with wide, hazel eyes as he tried to back away from their curious stares, only to bump into the shark man.

"He was listening in on you guys," said Kisame, easily pushing the young man away from him and sending him sprawling back down on the floor's shiny surface. "Should we get rid of him?"

"Oh please no! I beg you, I'll do anything!" the man pleaded, scrambling to get on his knees and bowing in front of the looming form holding the huge samehada. "Please spare me! I'll do whatever you make me do!"

Kisame looked amused, grinning and showing all his hereditary sharp teeth, pressing his sword's blunt end onto the chuunin's back. He bore down on the poor man's head with an enormous foot and pushed his face into the ground.

"Sorry boy, I'm not the one you need to talk to about that," he said, shifting the heavy weight of his sword between the shoulder blades and chuckling in a sinister way at every whimper of fear the young man made.

"Kisame, you heard him," interrupted Pain, watching with emotionless eyes, however his intonations betraying his mocking humor. "After all, he said he'll do anything we wanted him to."

Konan looked away from the disturbance, observing the mixed reactions of everyone in the room as the shark man retracted his sword and slung it over his shoulder, its size causing it to almost brush against the wall some few feet behind him. Most were, like her partner, disinterested, and only Tobi and Deidara seemed to show any amount of feeling. Horror and glee, respectively.

"We'll use him as a spy. Deidara, go lock him in somewhere. Secure him."

Her light eyes focusing on her partner, it took little for an outsider to be able to make out who was in command here. Although if they were particularly talented at sensing something, they would be able to see Tobi hinting at things he wanted. It struck her as odd that the other people in their organization still haven't noticed Madara's presence, but all in all she had to give it to him for being able to keep up his jolly façade as the childlike (most of the time childish) Tobi.

The man was dragged off once more, screaming for mercy as the blond bomber kept telling him to shut up, his voice shrilly crying for pity ringing throughout the hallways.

"Have you found the jinchuuriki yet?" asked Pain after the shrieks died out, lackadaisical to nothing in feeling about what had just happened as he turned his attention to the only long-haired missing nin left in the room.

Two bloodline doujutsus gazed at each other before the one being asked decided to answer, his lean form by the window largely dwarfed by his partner's. It was almost a wonder to behold two of the most powerful eye bloodline limits at one instance, and she regarded the two people with the respect they deserve.

"They managed to hide him in time," replied the Uchiha a little more sullenly than usual, his partially open cloak showing his arms crossed in front of him, ebony hair matted at the side of his face and around his neck. Konan realized with satisfaction that it wasn't only her who was dwelling in their misery from getting wet and not able to speak up about it. "We still have yet to find out who were the ones who hid him."

"He's the last one we need. Just find the boy. If he gets stronger we might end up having no choice but to kill him. He continually learns how to control his bijuu, and that would be too dangerous for us."

_The brat is just more stupid than brave,_ Konan told him silently, knowing that he wouldn't hear her. Talking about the Kyuubi vessel like he wouldn't be able to defeat him if it came down to it wouldn't help them one bit.

Invading Hidden Leaf had been tasked to her along with the others, having nothing else to do as the village they had control over was fine on its own. Well, that was if Pain was there to exercise his jurisdiction over it. All of them were dispatched to the village immediately after the eighth bijuu was captured and sealed, because the only remaining demon left uncaught was the Kyuubi.

Unfortunately, as it happened, Naruto got away, smuggled out from under their noses by some Leaf shinobi. So in the end, she was stuck here, running the village alongside six men, some of whom were clones. Pain far too important to appear in person, so rather than to risk being killed by a powerful counterattack from Leaf and its allies, they had to use Yahiko's body.

It worried her how much strain it placed on Nagato's body to be controlling it without being near, making her try to give a perfunctory glance at him to try and gauge how he was doing. She knew it was merely for her own selfish sake, to allay the fears rising in her because she knew that the body would function perfectly even though the controller could be close to death. Yahiko (_stop calling him that, he's not him anymore, he's Pain..._) gave her a cursory look of his own as if sensing her unrest.

Konan lost interest in the conversation and focused her attention to the quietly opening door as Deidara sneaked back in, a pleased grin over his cocky features. He slinked back over to where Tobi was, his partner starting to tap his shoulder for attention after which he shushed the masked man to ask his questions later once the meeting was over.

"Leader-sama."

She returned her focus back to Pain and Itachi as their conversation ended, just in time to watch the Uchiha give an almost indistinct nod of his head to her partner. He and Kisame were preparing to take off. She never understood the need to be all encompassing and the reign-over-the-world thing, but knowing Nagato – or Pain, she should always call him Pain – he was only thinking of the good of all in the long run.

Always the gentleman, even with his reputation for massacring his family, Itachi behaved as if she had been also part of the discussion. He bowed his head toward her as well.

"Konan."

It started there.

He looked up at her, the move protracted. It began from his bow, the way he moved his head up, his dark eyes dragging upward from her feet. The gaze felt as if it was raking through her, excessively slow in meeting her light ones. Those eyes that were red as blood watched her brazenly from under heavy lashes and perhaps it felt just too much. He straightened, and the contact was broken.

_How dare you_, she felt her face turn hot as his sharingan faded to black and he turned to face Pain once again.

There was definitely something different in the way he looked at her but it was hard to tell apart what emotion was from simple lack of his bloodline limit. But it clicked into place, as if there was some kind of hidden amusement behind them._  
_

"Go back to your posts," said Pain, oblivious to what happened. "We'll talk later."

**ooo000ooo**

Even here in this village, Pain cast a storm cloud over it, sending down an out of season shower of rain. (_"I knew that was Leader-sama's doing, damn him, un." "Deidara-sempai, you shouldn't talk like that about Leader-sama, it's for our own good." "Shut up, just go to where you're supposed to go!" "Deidara-semp–" "I said go! Or do you want me to blast you there? HM?"_) That had always been his way of being able to observe everything happening under the downpour, and this time she didn't like it.

There were few options of being able to scrutinize what was happening in and out of the border of the village, and since she had been posted on the wall itself and not on a watchtower, she was getting drenched through the thick Akatsuki robe. As if she could get even wetter than she had started out with. The material was so much heavier when wet, and it was weighing down on her shoulders, gravity adding to the strain.

_Are you also investigating me?_ she quietly asked her partner, gazing up to the dark heavens. It had been a long time since she last saw a sunset, and it was already around that time of the day by now. She also hadn't seen a sunrise in years. Or the sky at night.

The pitter patter of rainfall on the concrete, alongside those on the houses and stonework in Leaf, and the woods on the outside was the only sound she could hear for a long time. No complaints from her but it was depressing, even to someone like her who grew up in a place where it rained incessantly. Weren't they supposed to use hired ninja to do this?

It was nearing the end of the day since they first took the village early that morning, and they still had yet to wait for their subordinates to arrive. They may be powerful people but that didn't mean they didn't have limits. After days of cold rain and being always drenched, on the road and here, Konan had had enough. She was tired and she wanted to rest, and her shift still had an hour more to go.

"You're exhausted," said a gravelly voice to her right, and she automatically turned to look at its owner.

Kisame didn't seem to have any problems with getting wet, and he had been also placed on the border wall. For the first time since she met him, she envied his shark traits.

"Just a little," she replied, reaching up for the hundredth time to tuck her bangs behind her ear. The skin on her elbows were getting raw from being rubbed against the rough material of her wet cloak. She had used her sleeves to wipe off her makeup some couple of hours into the invasion and the dark tint was surprisingly stark against the black cloth. Her back felt like it was carrying some dead weight, arms and legs so heavy they might as well have been made from lead.

"You can go find yourself some shelter if you want. I can take over your section until Zetsu arrives."

She looked up through the icy rain to be able to meet Kisame's eyes directly, wondering if the offer was too good to be true. Usually they would do each other favors, and by they, she meant the rest of Akatsuki except her and Pain because, well, they weren't exactly close with any of the others. They kept to themselves. well, if Kisame was willing to finish her shift…

"I can't. Someone might try to run," she replied, looking back down to the concrete and sorely wishing she could accept. Her duty came before her, and she'd see to it that she finished her job first.

"Aw, c'mon, it's fine. Leader-sama might not want you getting too tired," he told her, shifting the weight of his gigantic sword to his other shoulder. The statement struck her as odd. It was like…

_Are you implying something? _"I'm sorry, what?" she asked.

Looking back up at Kisame, she ignored the pain her cramped neck muscles shed down into her back. He was using the samehada's rough skin to clear a clog of mud that stuck to his sandals.

"Nah, nothing," he replied scruffily, going about his business. "You wanna act tough, be my guest, but I'm pretty sure you're not built for endurance."

"You don't know me."

"You'll be surprised."

Konan sighed, fighting the urge to roll her eyes away but keeping it in check since she knew doing that would be far too childish of her. Water was already pouring down on her past her cloak in tickling rivulets that kept going and going, and even if it did help numb her aching muscles to some extent, oh what she wouldn't give for warm shelter and sleep.

Her clothes were clinging to her body in various degrees of wet coldness and damp warmth, the rough texture grating her skin and causing her elbows and legs to sting with every move she made. It didn't help that every now and then she had to change her position to keep herself alert.

"The Uchiha district is close to here, ya know," said Kisame after a while, leaning on his sword and staring into the general direction in the shadows of what she could only assume as the location of what he was talking about.

"I said I'd finish my shift. I'm fine," she replied firmly.

She felt a tad exasperated from the swordsman's pushiness. Doing nothing wrong by staying just a little bit more, Konan saw no point in taking off earlier that needed. If there were people inside who tried to make a getaway, or vice versa (she doubted anyone would want to be in Leaf with its current status right now), a few minutes might as well have been days if they succeeded.

The folded flower that was in her hair had long been reduced to wet wads of white paper that tore and scattered down the side of her robe in a fashion that reminded her of the time she forgot to take out a length of tissue paper in her pocket before throwing it into the laundry. All her clothes in that pile had been ruined and knowing she had no extra robe, she might have to settle going on without it.

The heavens continued to send down infinite torrents, in its black depths small flickers of lightning barely visible from the thick, dark clouds. From memory she knew Nagato never liked electricity much, and only every now and then when he was in rare moods would he indulge in creating it.

"Trust me, you don't know want to drop unconscious for some reason," continued her companion, looking down on her from his height as they continued to be pelted by icy drops of water.

She turned her head to see as he slowly stooped his large frame to sit down on the top of the wall, his legs dangling off the edge as he let out a sigh of relief with his sword beside him, never out of his sight.

Being approached by other Akatsuki members was relatively normal to her, in these recent years growing more frequent. And they almost always were because of their concern for her. Konan never really believed it was real, that they were just buttering her up to ask for some favor or to levy for better missions or other things, but those concepts never came. They would simply see to it that she was fine, and then some would continue to talk about random things, like they were buddies or some random thing like that.

Kisame was one of the "some" who liked to talk, and she was actually flattered because the small conversations helped her nerves when there wasn't anyone to have a decent conversation with. Being part of a highly sought-after criminal organization might have something to do with that.

She knew it was the normal human trait of socializing, trying to form bonds and be close. Most of them that were left in Akatsuki had been around each other for a long time that they were unconsciously gravitating closer, yet she knew that despite her own want to indulge in easy conversation with them, she would be spelling trouble further down the line.

A gust of strong wind blew and whipped their wet clothes around, greedily taking back what warmth she derived from standing agonizingly still for minutes. Konan wrapped her arms around herself against the cold that settled once more over her. Her big, blue, sanguine companion, on the other hand, didn't seem affected at all, grinning at her reaction that his sharp teeth glinted in what little light there was left.

_Damn it._ She was pretty used to being cold, but like being used to the rain, she got tired every now and then. Here in Leaf, with its naturally warm atmosphere that hadn't left the place, the downpour felt colder than usual.

"Your teeth are chattering," Kisame told her, calmly staring straight up at the dark storm clouds. "This isn't natural rain, ain't it? It's Leader-sama's?"

Konan nodded, clenching her jaw tightly to keep her shivering from being too obvious. Nagato might be overdoing it, if she was reduced to this pathetic state. She could barely feel her limbs, what little feeling left was of an unfriendly chill that was bone deep. This rarely happened to her and it was rather embarrassing that it took place with someone around who could see it as a weakness of hers. She was from Hidden Rain. She was supposed to work under these kind of conditions and deem them completely normal.

"Hey," said the shark man gruffly, fixing his circular beady eyes on her, "Fifteen minutes not on watch wouldn't matter, would it?"

"It would," she replied, grinding her words out to keep him from picking up on her trembling tone.

Surprisingly, he looked exasperated with her answer and didn't bother to hide a rumbling sigh of frustration coming from deep within his chest. Kisame scratched the back of his ear with a big blue hand and Konan wondered if she might have said something particularly wrong.

"It's fifteen minutes!" he declared as if it was some important point, staring up at her where she stood beside him with a glance that seemed to beseech her to understand. "It's not like some Leaf nin would try to kill me before Zetsu appears. And that guy comes early, if you noticed."

She stared at him, taken aback. He was, after all, one of the Seven Swordsmen, and he had that huge chakra resource. She was powerful herself, but surely, a few minutes wouldn't hurt?

"Why do you want to get rid of me so much?" asked Konan, a smile quirking at the edge of her lips. "Am I that repulsive to be around with?"

"No," Kisame replied, his booming laughter that followed showing a whole lot of teeth and still tinted with his gravelly tone. "Ya haven't slept since us prepping to come here. Like I said, you aren't built for endurance, Konan, it _shows_. You look wretched right now."

The smile grew on her lips, the cold of the water running down her face seeping through the metal of her piercing and was felt through her skin. She had forgotten that she wiped off her makeup hours earlier, and her lack of sleep must have showed through perfectly.

_Maybe that's why Itachi stared at you?_ she asked herself, immediately dismissing the thought. He hadn't been staring, he just glanced. That's all. _Maybe that's why Itachi took the time to glance at you, because you looked so damn horrible?_

"I don't have a place to stay. I might as well keep watch," she told Kisame, tucking another rebellious lock of blue hair behind her ear and successfully causing her skinned elbow to burn with the minimal movement. It was nothing but it was irritating, trying to hide the wince she made.

"Again, I told you Itachi's house is near here," he replied, grinning inoffensively and showing her the second row of his teeth.

The idea of her staying at the Uchiha's place seemed a bit far fetched in her opinion, and Konan just stared at him like he told her his mom was a shark and his dad was a ninja shark-caretaker who happened to have the extra sperm to spend. That notion seemed far fetched as well, but it was the more likely one to be true.

"I don't even know him," she said, knowing well she would appear to be taking advantage of her position in their group if she agreed.

"Aw, c'mon. I'd be crashing there later, and so might Deidara-chan. It's gonna be fine. Itachi's hospitable."

"And Pain?" she asked. He came first. Always.

"You're on opposite shifts. Leader-sama's on when you're off, so I bet'cha he's not gonna care much," he replied, as if it was going to be particularly easy to explain this to Pain.

She knew how the other members approached her differently when her partner wasn't around. They were more relaxed, casual. Like students in classroom when the teacher is out. She wasn't blind to not see how their mood lightened, how everything felt so easy without Pain's presence, and somehow it beckoned to her. The warmth of companionship felt tempting, yet she constantly chose to disappear despite them trying to reel her in.

"I'm still not sure about this," she said, aware the surroundings had been gradually darkening as night fell.

"Konan," Kisame said, using a rebuking tone that she didn't react to albeit she knew he was getting serious. "Three days without sleep isn't good, even for us. You worry too much about Leader-sama even though he could take care of himself. He's pretty strong, and a day without agonizing over something would do you good."

She lay silent, wondering if she should tell him to shut up, but her mouth just wouldn't move, because… she had to face it. She _was_ overprotective of Pain, but he was always her priority. He was her only precious person left. She could rest if their subordinates arrived.

"Can you take care of him if you die of exhaustion?"

"Kisame-san, watch your tone," she replied coldly, staring out at the village that was starting to light up. Even with Akatsuki's presence, it had to roll on, keep on living the time they still had.

"Trust me, that happened to some subordinate of one of us sword guys before, and Zabuza went all crazy and gone batshit on his ass because he always tried so hard."

"I'm not some little boy who has no mind of his own," Konan replied, looking down on the blue man. As much as possible, she tolerated her teammates. "I can take care of myself, thank you, but no."

She heard Kisame mutter something under his breath and tried to suppress herself from snapping at him. She had a moderate temper, not easy to anger, not patient forever. Only her string was getting pulled now because she knew he was forcing something on her that she didn't like.

_Don't like? Are you sure?_

That was pretty hypocritical of her. An hour ago she was wishing for shelter. Now... She probably just didn't like the idea of being bossed around. Although he appeared to do just that to her, Nagato never did. He kept up the appearance as a public thing for power and intimidation, but she didn't know if she was being irrational now because she was admittedly cranky.

"Go."

"I said–"

"Go," Kisame repeated, shaking his head like a dog would to get the water out of his sopping blue hair. "Your shift's over, I can see Zetsu."

She looked toward the direction where he was pointing the huge samehada, and sure enough, the wide green eaves of the other Akatsuki's body were prominent against the dreary grays around him, the surroundings and that seemed to lose shades of their color in the heavy rain.

"Are you sure about this?"

"Itachi won't eat you," he replied, chuckling at the faint tinge of pink on her cheeks from the insinuation.

With a heavy sigh of disappointment, she just waved a small goodbye to her temporary companion, then landed with a loud _thwack_ on the cobbled pavement below, the pooling water splattering around her in a ragged circle. The tempests didn't stop after she hit the ground.

**ooo000ooo**

Starting along the road, traversing with tired muscles and sore feet, she began seeing the smaller division wall inside the village and immediately knew those who lived (or used to live) inside it were aristocrats or bloodline clans. It was the same in Rain where high walls separated the elite from the others, like a protection against anyone destroying their flawless world.

She wasn't part of that. Too many in Rain never became shinobi through official means. They just picked up where they had to because of the political unrest and instability of the hidden village being caught in too many wars. She was thankful Jiraiya had decided to pick them up out of nothing, but there still remained the twinge of jealousy in whenever she saw those born of noble blood pass within their territory. Such naivete. Such ignorance of the world. Such painlessness.

From being blank, every panel of the two-man-high walls were now brandishing painted symbols of the clan who lived inside of it. Red and white paint that had chipped from since it was last touched-up, the rust from the roofs above inking down in slow, brown spills staining the symbols and the gray concrete.

They were fans, similar in shape to what Jiraiya had used to kindle the fires so long before. But this... She had seen this before, on the back of Itachi's shirt years ago when he joined them. He had been so young, now that she remembers that moment.

Up ahead was a portion of the wall that had been destroyed, the old stone on the ground starting to grow moss, the sides of the gap worn down into smooth, rounded edges through time. It was an ancient scar in the rock, and since she knew that there would be no one inside (no one alive, at least) to scold her if she used the shortcut instead of the main gate, Konan stepped over the rubble.

Then she nearly lost her footing in the slick algal growth.

"Damn it," carefully leaping down from the pile and onto the other side.

Rows and rows of black houses and establishments that stretched far into the forest met her eyes. Down one lane, a single house stood out among the rest, gated and within another smaller division wall. It caught her attention, not because it seemed to belong to that of an elite within the elite abode, but because it was the only one with any signs of life being lit from within. The orange glow from its windows were cast in blocks on the wet streets, the rain thundering on the roofs all around her.

With a sigh of disapproval, Konan took the first step towards it, when she suddenly felt a presence make itself known behind her that she immediately stopped.

"I never expected Kisame to take that joke seriously, but to see you actually agreed to it…" came a low baritone from her right.

Konan turned to look and sure enough, there was the Uchiha, watching her with dark eyes and making he feel like a deer caught in the headlights as he stared down at her, holding a red umbrella with a rather amused smirk.

* * *

**AN:** Not experimental for once, heh. Reviews and comments will be highly appreciated.


	2. Pilot Collision

**1may2012: Tweaking.**

Thanks guys, for bothering to review. xD Specifically Arcaina; Azalie-Kauriu; googlepixie; Hersheys Rocks; HuntingForAnUchiha; Sanctus Espiritus; sara; and sweet-taboos. Y'all rock my world!

* * *

**Scorpio: Blood Saga of the Dead War**  
Part II: Pilot Collision

_"Because we're not supposed to touch, yet you make me feel what you want."_

* * *

It was already dark. And she was wet. And cold. And fatigued. By now the sun's dying rays that managed to penetrate the thick cloud cover had long faded off into the distance, earlier from usual because of the forced change in the weather. The only light around them was from the solitarily lit house, its yellow glow reflecting clearly on the water puddles pooling on the ground, rain drops becoming visible upon falling into the radiant beams of golden light from the windows.

Earlier, as she had walked through the village before arriving to the Uchiha district, she had seen it come to life amid Akatsuki's reign. Houses lit up, conversations sounded and children played within. People rushing home ran through the rain, outright ignoring her. Animals were meowing or barking, some of them sitting on doormats and shivering like her or shaking the rain off their fur.

And then when she traversed the line of the parapets dividing the noble clans from the rest of the population, those signs of existence gradually died down.

No light. No chatter of people, even civilians. No pets around, no strays. Even the streetlamps had not been turned on and the only sound she could hear in the neighborhood was the heavy patter of rainfall against the flat, concrete streets and the rusty roofs of abandoned houses. They were considered abandoned, but their grim demise by an acquaintance's hand weighed on Konan's mind.

The only sign of anything living was that small patch of yellow that she made out amongst the rows and rows of dark houses. It would be clear to anyone from Leaf that one of its bloodline limit-bearing traitors had indeed come home, but she doubted they would bother to check for themselves when Akatsuki had attacked earlier that day with Itachi on the front lines for everyone to grasp the situation. She had been pretty sure there wouldn't be anyone else staying in that lone house except for him, and had traversed toward its direction only to be interrupted by the Uchiha himself.

Under different circumstances it would have been too careless of any for them to be riskily broadcasting their location to anyone, allowing them to instantly pinpoint where they were. But as long as their organization was the one in control, no one would dare try an assault to any of their members. Even if that one had massacred his own family and left his only brother in desolation.

Konan squinted through the driving rain at Itachi's figure, the only source of light being from his house and a good hundred meters off. In a sense their surroundings were rather tranquil, and she would have enjoyed this at some other time except now.

A horrible feeling of something akin to a leaden weight dropped heavy into the pit of her stomach as she processed what he just said.

"_I never expected Kisame to take that joke seriously, but to see you actually agreed to it…"_

She simply mustered up her most impassive face and faced him, the only thin defense she could come up with at the moment, feeling fatigue pulling down the edges of her lips. The heat was rising to her cheeks regardless of the intense chill she was in, the amused smirk quirking on the younger man's lips giving away that he perceived her embarrassment.

It was a joke. It was a childish joke that Kisame got her to comply to. She should have known better than to take the swordsman's word for truth. Right now Itachi must be finding morbid humor in her situation and was thinking she was all too gullible to be falling for some simple, stupid joke. _You and your idiot partner can go to hell._

"Very funny," clipped Konan, voice loaded with sarcasm as she was unable to keep a violent shiver from wracking her body, the cold reaching and seeping into her bones.

This wasn't the first time they made fun of her in Akatsuki, which had been courtesy of Hidan and Deidara where they managed to make her say "quickie". It had been an inside joke because the religious dimwit burst out laughing and the dumb blond was red in the face from holding it in when she found it falling short of funny. She left them that time without a word and never anticipated it to happen again. Until now.

"It's not. Just an observation," Itachi easily replied to her snide comment, transferring the umbrella to his other hand and an eyebrow slightly raising in question.

Konan was miserable and tired, wet from being continuously pelted by icy rain. She had already been in this condition for days and she had finally felt the exhaustion creeping in hours earlier, only she never wanted to be tried and found lacking in what Nagato expected her to be able to do. So she didn't complain. Where was he, anyway?

However, things at hand came first and the ragged ache in her body was already taking its toll. She wasn't in the mood for this childish prank. Especially from someone whom she thought was at least well-mannered enough to leave her alone.

Frankly, she had no idea what they found entertaining in her being at the Uchihas. She never did really find any of their jokes funny, and it grated on her nerves however well she was able to hide it. She was only currently concerned with the fact that all possibilities of her having a decent bed, or having any kind of shelter at all just to be out of the rain in the least, flew straight out her window of opportunity.

So. What was it? Was the supposed hospitality of Itachi as told by his partner actually a mere prank made at her expense? Konan didn't know if it was possible to dislike the current situation more than she already did.

"Fine. Tell Kisame then that he's charming," she said, keeping her jaw tight to keep from betray the chattering of her teeth.

The boy (Itachi was really so young, but his height made it a little odd to be calling him a boy out loud) in front of her looked vaguely mystified. She took in his appearance for the first time as he lifted both brows at what she said, finding what she told him unusual. He wasn't wearing his cloak, and appeared to have been out for some time, his feet wet but the rest of him comfortable under the umbrella. She could see from his raised skin that he sensed the chill as much as her, his shirt exposing the basic build of his body.

He was very much like Nagato, who wasn't big and bulky even though extremely strong. Itachi was slender, with hints of muscularity beneath his lightly tanned skin that told her of natural fairness had it not been for time under the sun. There was no doubt that he was a looker, but as far as she knew him, that was simply who he was to her. A pretty boy who happened to have the brain to go with his appearance.

"I'll be going then," she said after a while, slowly turning her back on him to save what little face she had left. _Thanks for nothing._

The heavens never relented on their lamenting as she took step after heavy step away from Itachi. She valued her pride, and she wouldn't ask for his help, not after they larked her around. She would have to make do on her own as of now seeing as her comrades weren't going to be helpful and only find her crashes hilarious. Better not think about it too much, it would get her nowhere. Her only problem left was a place to stay.

There weren't that many options and all of them were things that she was not too keen on doing. If it came down it, she could always mask her appearance and check in at an inn. She was from Rain and she didn't want this kind of weather even though she was accustomed to it. She could imagine it more so for Leaf citizens who were used to sunny days and bright skies.

They never expected to hit this massive a snag in the plan of capturing the last jinchuuriki so there was no backup plan prepared, which was also known as, they weren't supposed to be spending more than a few hours in this village. It was so retardedly simple that she would have laughed at it had it not actually happened.

With an inward sigh Konan began with one foot in front of the other, walking away from Itachi in lumbering steps when he suddenly called out after her, posing a question she desperately wanted to hear.

"So you'll just go, is that it?"

Konan stopped, then looked at him over a wet shoulder though sodden bangs. The light behind Itachi lent him a faint, yellow aura as he stood in its path, the sound of the rain on the fabric of his umbrella louder than those on the roofs around them. His other hand was casually in his pocket, dark ponytail pulled to his front over a shoulder.

"I think I'm fine on my own, Itachi-san," she replied. _I'd rather you tell me you want me to stay than make me ask for it. You're sort of an ass for making fun of me, and so is Kisame._

"You don't want my help?" the Uchiha continued, pulling out his hand briefly from his pocket to run it through his hair.

She stared, watching him and running through her head for a neutral answer.

"I'm already wet. Staying under the rain won't change that," she said. She was still waiting for him to ask. _Really now? You damn well know I'm on a stretch here._

Itachi briefly looked up at his umbrella and then at her, looking up again for a second time a little longer than the first before finally fixing his dark eyes to her drenched figure in the rain. Konan realized she might want to eat her words when he approached her in deliberately slow steps, the collecting water on the concrete compliant and silent under his footsteps.

The sudden loss of the bombarding rain on her body was a small relief when he came close to lend her temporary shelter under the red umbrella. She could feel the warmth radiating off him within their moderate proximity, feeling like he had dragged her out of a lake. Their nearness made her aware she was at least half a head shorter than him with her heels, and she could smell smoke and alcohol on him. Where did he come from, exactly? _A bar?_

"Now you're not getting wet, you still don't want my help?" Itachi asked her, his dulcet tone lacking the humor it had earlier. His breath didn't carry the smell of intoxication or cigarettes, something she greatly appreciated as she had no inclination to entertain someone who wasn't in control of himself.

"No."

"You don't want to get out of the rain?"

"No."

"You're not tired?"

"No."

There was a heavy silence that abruptly fell between them as she stared up into his dark irises, well aware of the rushing of the downpour around them that matched the blood pounding in her ears. He had striking eyes, even though seemingly feminine. And it was too easy to read through them that he wasn't buying her unremitting denial of his questions, because well, she had to face it, she looked worse for wear and Kisame had already pointed that out earlier.

"It doesn't hurt to swallow your pride every now and then," he said quietly, fine eyebrows slightly coming together as he looked towards the house. "All you have to do is ask."

_I must look that bad if you're trying to make me accept, right Uchiha?_ She bit the lock of the piercing inside her lip.

It dawned on her this was probably the longest and only exchange she had with Itachi that remotely resembled a real conversation. They were actually talking to each other after almost a decade of polite gestures, brief eye contacts, or mere nods to inform the other of their presence. All of a sudden here he was, offering her a favor when all they did was almost always ignore each other. Was he trying to actually befriend her, or was there another underlying joke she wouldn't be able to understand?

"Your offer is fine. But no thanks," she answered and her gut feeling kicked in. _I know I'll regret this right about…_

"Suit yourself then, Konan-sama. But if you change your mind, the house won't be moving any time soon."

… _now._

With a small shrug of his shoulders, Itachi simply turned around, and then started walking away from her.

The heavy rain began to envelope her once more using its greedy, cold hands to blanket her without the protection of the humble umbrella. She felt icy rivulets resuming its course running down her body through her clothes and she had to look askance through the sheets of water, averting her eyes. His diminishing form headed towards the light and she watched him, hesitant as to what to do. His sudden change of the formal address to her name haunted her.

"_Konan-sama__."_

Her lips tightened. That meant nothing.

Nothing, because there he was, her last chance to have a decent place to stay for at least tonight hurrying off to his house all because she stuck herself too high on her pedestal. She was kidding nobody, because apparently her lack of stamina wasn't top secret information in their little group of S-class criminals. _There he goes, a warm house and a bed to sleep on, because you're too conceited to accept help when you need it. Way to go, Konan, congratulations. You just earned yourself a first-class, moss-covered stone to sleep on._

Letting the rain pound her as she kept her eyes on the dark form with the red umbrella, she sighed deeply, watching as the Uchiha turned to his gate, hands familiar in unhooking the medial lock inside. Ultimately he disappeared through the unbolted entrance, the hollow clacking of wood against wood shutting after him.

The shower continued cascading around her as she stared up at the pitch black firmament, the faint sound of a door opening and closing in the distance and Konan wordlessly imploring the rain to stop.

No such luck.

"Do you really want this for me?" she said softly, wet lips directing the question to Nagato. It was a deaf call, however, since she knew he wouldn't be able to even hear her screaming in these thundering torrents.

When the thick fall of drops didn't stop and the forks of lighting never ceased, Konan threw a last forlorn glance toward the warm lights of Itachi's home then trudged through sloshing water on sore feet.

**ooo000ooo**

Waiting by the side of the stove for the water to boil, Itachi reached behind him and pulled off the piece of string that held his ponytail together, the dark curtain of hair freely sliding through the ring of cloth. The recent weather wasn't agreeing to him, and he was thankful that his foolish little brother hadn't tried to do anything stupid to the house. Like ransacking his room. He actually left it the way it had always. It even seemed that Sasuke cleaned it before his own abscond of the village, though a layer of dust settled everywhere.

He had been out to see if the rest of infamous Team Kakashi, namely the whiny fan girl and the emotionless artist, happened to still be around in the village so he could try and ask them whether or not they knew where Naruto was. He hadn't wanted to find their teacher for the very reason he would only be engaged in another fight, one he didn't want after an exhausting day of forcing back the Leaf ninja who retaliated.

In the end, he gathered the two were sent on a mission a few days earlier and had yet to return. Akatsuki may have the village in their hands, but all the rest of the odds were stacked against them.

A jarring crack of thunder startled him, taking his eyes off the kettle to look through the window in front of him for a few seconds, staring out into the lashing gale that shook the trees and caused dirt to ride along with the rain. The other side of the glass was wet and flecked with loose leaves, and upon finding nothing interesting, he returned his attention to watching the water.

After Pain's abruptly called meeting upon finding out the jinchuuriki was nowhere in Leaf, he and his partner had arrived at the Hokage tower only to discover they were the only ones around. Usually Pain and Konan were ahead of the rest of the group.

Kisame, who had nothing else to do and was intrigued by the disruption in their routine, decided it had been a good time to bring up the lead duo's relationship. He had said they might have wanted to "do it a little more privately this time," and that they went out of their way to find a room.

When he had replied no one really saw anything happen between their leader and his partner, the ever so droll shark man replied he must be really going blind if he wasn't noticing the details. And that chemistry was proof enough, so he needed to go find himself some proper glasses.

As the day had progressed from the jab at his eyesight, the actual joke that had gotten Konan anywhere near his house was made after Zetsu appeared through the Hokage desk and caught him in the middle of pondering an attempt to stamp on Kisame's foot. The eerily inexpressive stare of their spy caused him to abort the intent altogether.

As usual, Kisame didn't stop, and yakked on about something that concerned his house, their Leader, and his partner. Suffice to say he had then succeeded in crushing a blue foot under his heel, much to Zetsu's added staring.

Itachi ran a hand up against his opposite arm when a particularly large gust of wind managed to slip through the cracks of the window's small openings, ignoring the way his hair lifted and settled behind him as he basked in the warmth of the steam faintly emerging from the spout.

His partner might have been crude, but he had to admire his sense of humor when he saw Konan jump down from the old opening in the wall, seeing how far Kisame would go to make his point. It made a smirk make its way to his lips, because for a moment, it did look like she was there for an illicit appointment. She appeared as if being caught red-handed when he called out to her, still seeing those steely eyes widening at his presence.

However, any amusement he found in her situation was short lived upon bothering to look further into her condition. Her shoulders were somewhat more slumped, expression more strained, and without make-up her pallid complexion and dark circles under her eyes immediately gave away her exhaustion.

It wouldn't surprise any of them to know if she pushed herself to lengths that were far out of her reach for Pain, but when he actually laid his eyes on her to see how much she had done to herself, he felt a twinge of pity. With disheveled hair and drawn, striking features, coupled with the fact she looked like she had been fighting a Mist nin, Konan rivaled the look of a banshee.

"It shouldn't even be raining this time of the year," Itachi told the kettle, having no one else around in the house to talk to. Kind of ironic that after he had taken the lives of the people who lived here, he could still imagine Mikoto behind him, chopping vegetables for the night's dinner.

His senses heightened when a window somewhere on the other side of the house banged open from a blast of wind, his hand instinctively going to his kunai holster still on his leg, more out of habit that actual danger.

He really found the weather objectionable.

Everyone in the organization knew Pain had total control over his hidden village but he wasn't exactly sure if his power over the climate could extend here. It made him wonder why their subordinates, high-ranking shinobi from Rain and a handful of other paid wannabe ninja, still hadn't arrived. They would have hell to pay if they did come, and if they used the weather as a reason not to be on time, their punishment would worsen without doubt. As Akatsuki was stuck on guard duty, getting wet wasn't an excuse to dawdle.

Itachi pulled up the cover of the kettle and watched as tiny bubbles started to form where the water kissed the metal.

Speaking of getting wet, as he replaced the lid, Konan looked like a drowned rat. He only heard from Kisame that she hadn't slept for three days straight. It was one reason he offered her a place to stay in spite of the seemingly random joke. Only she didn't accept, and he could only surmise what she would do.

A mosquito vanished into a tiny burst of flame when it tried to land on him. She was too docile. Pliable. Her silence made it so the others were able to push her over.

The water was taking too long to boil.

Turning around and walking out of the kitchen deciding his drink could be left alone for a few more minutes, Itachi pulled off his shirt upon stepping into the hallway, following the well known path leading to his room as he tugged his hair free from being caught in the gaps of the fishnet. He could use a change of clothes, and settling to disrobe along the way with no one else around to see him, loosened the long length of cloth he used as a belt.

Slinging his shirt and the length of material on a shoulder, he ignored the white fabric dragging out on the floor behind him like a tail. About to pull down his pants down and already having it to his hips, Itachi was abruptly stopped short when a loud knock resounded from the front door at the other side of the house.

The Uchiha turned around and narrowed his eyes at the opposite direction, irked by the interruption. If that was Kisame…

Discarding the long cloth at a corner, he slipped his shirt back on, pulling his hair out from inside with a tug at the sleek strands. By the time he reached the front door, he was getting ready to order Kisame to go back and finish his shift because he wasn't going to do be doing it for him.

Grabbing the knob and yanking open the panel, the sharp "What?" died at the tip of his tongue upon realizing who it was standing before him, an uncomfortable taint on her expressionless, pristine face.

Konan looked even worse in the better lighting of the house, the dark circles under her eyes more pronounced as her usually cold gaze felt mellower from weariness. Her light eyes looked slightly glassy, drenched blue hair framing her face and matted to her forehead.

The Akatsuki robe hung heavy on her shoulders, its wide neck bowing down from saturated weight and dripping all over the wooden platform she stood on. She was shivering and she was cold, that much was obvious, but even in her sad condition with the way she couldn't meet his eyes and how she found the door more interesting than him, she managed to look sheepish.

"Can I stay?" she asked, voice thin.

Itachi stepped away from the doorway to let her enter, following her small frame walking past him, the wet material hanging like a sheet of black water about her. He thought she had run off somewhere when he left her out in the rain however he could now only stare as she stood dripping in his entryway. It felt weird to actually have her here.

At the back of his mind he started wondering if Pain might be lurking somewhere in the house. Damn Kisame for tainting his thoughts.

He knew Konan was probably as clueless as he was, knowing it partly because they never really had any kind of connection to begin with. Everything he knew about her, he could count on one hand. He knew only basics, that she was their leader's partner and the only female in the history of the organization. Her ninjutsu was origami. She was older than him. And that the rest of Akatsuki were trying to decipher if the two Rain ninja had an intimate relationship.

Aside from all that, he knew completely nothing about Konan.

He was a stranger to her as she was to him, and that posed a huge awkwardness fast forming between them. The only reason she was here was because she took him up on his proposal.

"I'll… take your coat," he offered, still quite unsure what to do.

There was the loud unsnapping of clasps and the general sound of the rustling of wet fabric as he slowly closed the door behind them.

"I'm not imposing, am I?"

Her question made her discomfort clear, much like how he was feeling at the moment. He chose wisely not to show it, to prevent escalating the mutual feeling between them.

"No, it's fine."

He stepped behind her and gripped the rough material firmly as he pulled it off her, much heavier than he expected. The soggy fabric easily slid off her shoulders and he thought he heard a sigh of relief. It was clearer now how Konan was wet through and through, her clothes sticking to every contour of her body, from the hollow line her spine made on her lower back to the curve of her behind. Kisame would have a field day if he saw this.

Black shirt against white skin, hair a midnight blue from being wet, she would have been monochrome had it not been for the angry red patches of skin around her neck and on her elbows that looked raw from being in constant contact with coarsely wet cloth. The same thing happened to him years ago, after getting caught in a freak deluge, and he hadn't made the same mistake since.

"Wait here. I'll fix your room."

**ooo000ooo**

Konan waited for Itachi to turn down the corner of the hallway before reaching down and yanking hard on an open-toed sandal, losing her balance and hopping around inelegantly to regain it. As she managed to get the blasted shoe away from her, she immediately set her foot down on the warm floor to breathe a sigh of satisfaction. Taking a few moments to let the aching in her foot recede, she reached down one last time and pulled off the other sandal, finding it easier to keep steady this time and finding no trouble as she straightened to set both bare feet comfortably flat on the tepid surface of the glossy platform.

There was a perfectly good reason as to why she took up the offer the Uchiha gave to her. Of course there had to be. Something happened outside. She swallowed her pride, that's what.

She looked around her, admiring the traditional design of the house from its rice-paper dividers to the altar to the side. The wooden floorboards were polished to a shine where she could almost see her reflection in it, something she realized she might be ruining with the amount of water she brought in, small puddles beginning to form and seep around her feet.

She felt out of place in here, like an intruder. Itachi must have had other things planned for tonight, the look on his face showing mild surprise when he pulled open the door.

She knew about his brother who followed in his footsteps and abandoned the village a couple of years ago. From what she was told, the brat was set to avenge those who the older Uchiha massacred by killing him. For all she knew, she still had no idea what drove Itachi to do such a thing. Family was precious to her. To him, he played it like a rag doll.

A howl of wind ringing outside made her shiver from its mere sound despite not being as corporeal as the warmth of being indoors. The puzzling split second glance he gave at her during their meeting earlier no longer bothered her. He was doing her a favor by letting her stay over, so getting worked over trivial things was as petty as can be.

Opening the door earlier, it was the first she'd seen of him without his ponytail, the strands cascading down in a black silk waterfall across his shoulders. It made her envy how much he and Deidara didn't seem to be taking care of their hair at all, showing blatant disregard for their long manes and yet they ended up having better hair than her.

Running a slender hand through her own tousled locks, she tried to untangle the intertwined blue mess that refused to cooperate. The initial expression on her host's face told her more than what she wanted to know about her appearance.

As she tried to take a deep breath of the warm, homey air, she bit back a cough from escaping her lips, tightening the muscles around her throat to try and stop the reflex. She failed, and ended up choking into her hands as the itch in her airway persisted abrasively.

_Great_, she thought when the spasms of her lungs gave up, raking her loose bangs back into her scalp.

She still couldn't get the image of Itachi out of her mind, because when the Uchiha walked away she had watched the sleek curtain of hair swing slightly from side to side behind him, and at the same time noticed that there was an almost imperceptible sway in his walk. Almost. _Is he... ?_

"Konan."

She looked up to see the dark-haired man staring at her and waiting at the far end of the hallway, her dripping coat now gone from his arm. She felt extremely grateful she hadn't finished that random thought out loud. If he had heard that and asked why she was asking, she wouldn't know what to say.

Itachi beckoned for her to follow him by tilting his head toward the direction they were supposed to go, vanishing once more around the corner he gestured towards.

Trailing after him with a track of wet footsteps following close behind being fed by water saturating her clothes, Konan hurried to catch up. Her clothes attached themselves uncomfortably to her like a second skin and made her feel too exposed for her liking. She wasn't so weak a kunoichi that she had to use her body as a distraction to her enemy, and subconsciously she pulled away at a pant leg from her skin.

She caught up with Itachi as she rounded the corner he disappeared to, half-jogging half-walking so as not to lose him and saw him ascending a flight of stairs at the end of the hallway. Slowing down to match his pace as she stayed somewhere behind him, she felt rather intimidated by his height when they reached the second landing. She only reached around his mouth when barefoot, and she took a split second glance at his features.

He seemed like the king of indifference, his cool demeanor inborn and the basis of his whole persona. It was similar to Nagato's own, when they had been young. She had only grown to wear an apathetic mask through the wars and bloodshed she had grown up with, but for him, it felt ingrained into every fiber of his being. His eyes only briefly passed over anything of no importance, his social gestures amounting to only a shrug at most, not totally uncommunicative but his responses consisting of carefully chosen words.

When Konan looked away she could feel the way he subtly turned towards her, probably noticing the quick look she gave him, and tried to stay as nonchalant as possible, feeling guilty for doing nothing (_for watching him?_). She hoped he didn't notice, or mind.

Up ahead a patch of light was cast onto the floor through an open doorway, and they stopped upon reaching the room whence it came from, Itachi pushing the door even wider.

"Here," he finally said, his baritone strangely matching well with the muted sound of rainfall, casting his gaze at her to his side as she was unable to take her eyes off those ebony tendrils effortlessly gliding above the curve of his shoulder when he tilted his head to face her. _Smooth._

Konan stepped onto the tatami mat, taking in the ambiance of the room. From all she had seen so far about him, she had assumed he would would have been brought up in a strictly traditional house. Although with the bed off the floor and the table beside it, where a lamp sat as the source of the light, his family wasn't too conventional after all.

"It's just the guest room," he said, taking her out of her reverie to watch him leaning idly on the doorway. "I would have given you my parents' bedroom if only Kisame and Deidara weren't going to come by later. I guessed as much you wouldn't want bunking with them."

"Uh… yes," she replied sparsely, briefly meeting his dark eyes. There was a natural intensity to them.

And they were, Konan realized, drifting much lower than what she was comfortable with. Or rather, much lower than usual, compelling an urge to pull her arms over her chest.

It was hard to fight a response to the feeling but it seemed the Uchiha finally gathered her agitation, dark eyes snapping back up to meet hers. Another surge of heat filled her cheeks and reddened her ears. She found herself envying Tobi's carelessness at the moment, who probably would play on his pretended obliviousness of the situation.

"There might be some clothes lying around here that would fit you."

And with that bare statement Itachi simply walked off. She didn't really expect him to be… interested in such things, now would she?

_Damn you Nagato, for leaving me alone like this. Where are you anyway?_ the words spilling, vexing in her mind, walking over to the door and slowly sliding it closed before perching at the very end of the bed. She was still wet, after all, and it wouldn't do good to be flicking the water around like a naiad.

He communicated through the rain to her, a ninjutsu he used with her and her alone. It was a one way information flow where he sought her out and gave her orders, telling her what he needed done. Since he had left them, there was nothing else. It was a blank slate when she stayed under the raindrops, not knowing if he had forgotten she was there.

She feared he was gone, however the rain also brought assurance to her that he was still living and strong enough to continue monitoring them.

"Why do I even try," she muttered under her breath, running a finger on the smooth sheets.

It didn't take long before Itachi returned, a few knocks drumming on her door.

"See if these fit," while offering her a couple of folded clothes on top of a towel. She gave him a questioning look when she took them, barely registering how he averted his eyes, the red clouds on his Akatsuki robe draped over his shoulder stunningly bright against his features.

"They're my brother's," he replied without missing a beat. She merely nodded and gently closed the door.

So the weasel was thinking she would be able to use the clothes of a twelve-year-old boy. No big deal. For now she couldn't care less, and stripped away article after wet article from her body, casting them aside to a sodden heap on the floor and dragging the towel across her skin, ignoring the stings of her skin.

A few moments later, in a swathe of terry cloth, she pulled the door open once more to see Itachi leaning against the wall opposite her room, arms crossed over his chest and eyes lowered. Long lashes fanned across his cheeks as she self-consciously held out the refolded clothes to him, those dark eyes slowly trailing upwards at the sound of sliding wood (_dragging upward from her feet, __raking through her..._). He straightened, those all too-probing appraisal seemingly burning right through.

"Too tight," she told him, pushing the earlier incident out of her head. The annoying quirk returning at the edges of his lips, the humor in them when he found her in the rain earlier returning, calmly keeping his eyes locked onto hers.

"No, really."

She wondered why he was staring.

"Next time," he replied, arms uncrossing as he pushed himself off the wall and stepping closer, invading her personal space and his height forcing her to look up at him, "undress away from the door."

She stiffened, feeling the hair at her nape bristle. _What?_

He must have picked up on her confusion and continued, "You can see shadows when the room is lit from the inside."

It hit her. Paper door. Lamp. Silhouette.

He continued watching her with scintillating amusement as a scarlet hue flushed her skin and rendered her unable to meet those almost-black irises, holding her head up in indignation to counter her embarrassment.

"Use this instead," he said.

He took his brother's clothes from her, handing her the coat he had been holding and letting her mortification die down. Once more she didn't bother voicing a reply, Itachi extremely keen at picking up her inquisitive stares. Admirable that he could pick up the twitch in her lips, the furrow of her brow. But then again, he was good at subtlety, wasn't he?

"A spare," he explicated, and she watched in quiet fascination as he ran a hand through his hair when a small breeze breached the walls. "Unless you want my dirty laundry, that's all I have for now."

"No. This is fine," she said, fiddling with the material in her hands when she realized they had nothing else to say.

Now she was dry, she couldn't help but feel too warm under Itachi's scrutinizing gaze, following the small swallow from his throat up to his cupid bow lips, then to the intense stare of his obsidian eyes. She knew he wasn't intending anything at all, merely being who he really was. Countless grays and blacks in his magnetic eyes that could command without saying a word, the Uchiha's were a lucky race.

She felt the atmosphere getting oppressive when Itachi reached out to her bare shoulder, and she almost (_almost_) slapped it away when he merely brushed off a loose strand of blue hair, the tips of his fingers barely dragging across her skin.

There was a faint bang of the door downstairs that startled her , immediately followed by familiar voices beneath their feet.

"Itachi-san!"

"Deidara don't shout, you idiot."

"Itachi-san!"

"I said don't– hey, take off your shoes!"

Itachi didn't appear to have noticed the additional guests, impertinently keeping his eyes locked onto hers. She didn't (_couldn't_) look away, heart thudding in her ears, and a faint shrill sound like a whistle pierced the air.

"The water's... boiling," he said in a husky whisper, rolling the words off his velvet tongue. She didn't have any idea of knowing what to say to that, really, because she was fighting off the urge to move back when he wasn't even invading her private space. It felt that way all the same.

"Come back downstairs to join us," he added in a low baritone, breath warm against her skin, "after you change."

And he left. Just like that.

Konan let go of a breath didn't realized she was holding in, stepping back into the room and quickly shutting it after her, leaning on the wooden frame and sliding down towards the floor with eyes shut tight, hands gripping the material of Itachi's robe. The way he looked at her during the meeting, she could forget. This time, however…

_Itachi is just good-looking_, she thought, forcing the information into her head. _And t__he brat knows it._

* * *

**AN:** Longer than I expected. So, any questions yet? Reviewers will be glomped with love. xD


	3. Play to the Music

**01may2012** Edited and polished.

Holy fucknuts.

Any hatred I receive from updating only once in THREE FUCKING YEARS is very well deserved. I apologize. I'm so effin' sorry. Now here. Gobble this up. Thanks to all those who like and reviewed the first two parts that I wrote. :D It gives me hope for these two fuck buddies to tell their stories.

* * *

**Scorpio: Blood Saga of the Dead War**  
Part III: Play to the Music

_"Tasting you would be such sweet sorrow."_

* * *

As if a switch was flicked open, Konan's vision swirled around her in hues of the light of the lamp and the dark brown notes of the room, pain exploding in her head like her brain started swelling. She gasped and pressed her hand to the door for support, squeezing her eyes closed to try and keep the nausea from getting the better of her. _No. No, no, no..._

The feeling breached her being as her knees started to buckle, arms feel heavy as lead and head so light that it could have floated away. When she tried to focus her vision on the blurry white mass that was the bed, everything around it then kept turning steeply from side to side. Every little thing seemed heightened to her now despite the dreaded vomiting that she expected.

Deep inside her core she could feel the dull, stabbing pain as her stomach started to churn and tried to counter it, the sharp flex stinging her throat as she tried to fight the automatic response of her esophagus to open up. Cold sweat started breaking out, feeling the dampness on her forehead, arms and legs as the acrid stench of bile rose in her throat.

The first heave made her cover mouth, ineffectively muting the retching sounds as she gagged. The pain was just agonizing as her ears started to ring from the pressure inside her head. Letting go of the door and dropping to the floor, Konan mustered all remaining strength and clasped both white hands to her mouth as the heave subsided temporarily, offering the briefest relief.

_Please, not here._

Another bout unpleasantly washed over her and she could feel the blood draining from her face when the upchuck returned with full force, most likely the result of not eating since leaving Rain. She had figured then that there wasn't enough time, and now she regretted it immensely. The vacuumed pain almost crippled her, the muscles in her abdomen trying to suck up every last bit of nothing from her insides to be strewn out, wanting the last meal she had eaten a week ago to be given up for all it was worth.

Tears started forming in her eyes, sliding down her face as the second round, too, subsided for the moment. Her body, burnt out, was too weak to handle the attack against itself and left her trembling on the soft, grass mat beneath her knees. Nothing. Her body was giving up just plain nothing, unless she started spewing blood. This obviously wasn't what she wanted as she felt saliva leaking through her fingers and running down her arms. She didn't know if she could still suffer another of this, when her stomach decided that it wanted to prove her wrong.

Before she could take in a decent breath, her gut gave another painfully dry heave, blue hair wet with sweat, rain, spittle and tears brushing the floor as she silently choked on the gag, trying to ride it out. She hated this helplessness, she hated it, she hated it with every ounce of emotion she had left, unable to put up a fight. When she thought she almost couldn't bear it, it receded.

It was like she could breath for the first time as Konan straightened with light eyes wide and full of tears, gulping large gasps of air to regain strength to her feeble body, sucking in the musty air of the room.

"Shit," she panted, staring up at the blank, gray ceiling, spit dripping down her chin as she pulled her hands away from her face.

She closed her eyes, squeezing them shut that the remaining tears that welled up spilled over down her cheeks, running down her neck, her chest and into the white fluff of the towel. _Definitely my day could go better._

Somewhere outside she could hear the booming thunder rolling, rain dully pelting on the tile roof and wondered how she must have fared if she hadn't decided that it would be best to crash at the Uchiha's abode. From looking up she turned her gaze down to her sticky, wet hands, purple nail polish chipped and wrists still raw from rubbing on fabric. She shuddered at the thought that she could have still been out there in the storm.

Her eyes flickered over to the other door in the room. The heavy oak was partially open that showed only dark inside. However, the yellowish light of the lamp cast enough of itself onto the pebbled floor full of river stones. _A bathroom?_

She wiped her hands gingerly on the towel she was wearing, feeling as if someone had stuffed her head full of cotton. If only Nagato could see her now. This was one bad decision after another, apparently this situation wanting to teach her that doing an ego versus situation check was something she had to do more often. Heck, if only the rest of Akatsuki would see her now. This was something that she wouldn't die down if they ever found out. Hah. Konan, the leader's angel. Defeated by a vomit session.

"Oh god, you can be really stupid if you want to," she hissed to herself, starting to feel her stomach start to turn again. Her vision began betraying her as she tried to stand up shakily, cringing when she could feel the sour, metallic taste filling her mouth again. _So this is what being drunk_ _feels like._

"Damn this."

She aimed for the bathroom.

Konan managed to take two steps when the wooziness hit her hard, collapsing her on all fours as she tried to spill her guts. It was like hell, wracking her uncoordinated body as nothing even came up. The slightly moldy smell of a three year abandoned house made it worse. Damn. She would be a horrible drunk, disgusting retching noises and all.

Not surprising now that the only person who managed to actually have more than a fleeting interest in her was Yahiko. Another painful, gut-busting contraction cut off her air supply when from far in the recesses of her currently occupied mind, she registered that a door has slid open.

In the middle of the horrible throes of her body trying to self destruct, Konan's world was sent spinning again when she felt two strong hands grip her under the arms, pulling her up from the floor.

Everything in her vision went haywire. The orange lamp, the birds in the painting on the wall, the faded wallpaper, all too much information that her eyes fluttered close. All she could think of was that there was someone with her now, finally, who seemed to be able to help her. She felt that person grab her around the waist.

"Stay awake," a voice ordered briskly as she felt she was being led to the bathroom, the cool, pebbly surface beneath her feet being the only thing that she could rely on to tell her where she was.

A garble noise came from her throat as a response. _Oh great. Shame yourself more. It isn't enough. More! More! You are just horrible._

She felt herself being positioned over the toilet, which she gripped with all the strength that she had left, trying to open her eyes against the mind numbing dizziness that engulfed her. Her cheek rested on the cool porcelain. Somewhere, a fluorescent light had been turned on allowing her to make out a traditional wooden tub in front of her, but that was about everything she could take in. A shadow at the edge of her vision moved towards her. She was now wondering how much more embarrassment could she bring onto herself aside from this. And if she still could look Itachi in the eye when this ends.

_Wait. Itachi. Don't tell me he's the one who..._

Another dry heave gripped her insides as a strong hand pulled the loose blue hair away from her face. It felt like it would go on forever, when she felt a strong push on her abdomen. Nothing. She choked. The person knelt behind her as she was pulled up to lean against him, bracing her against his body. The hand on her abdomen pushed. Much more powerfully.

Like the switch was flicked, Konan blacked out.

**ooo000ooo**

Itachi looked at her face as she lay on the bed. What happened some fifteen minutes earlier was something he didn't expect. He was about to reach the first landing when he heard her collapse and so he returned, only to find out that her body was already backfiring on itself because of her abusing it. This wasn't going to be news to anyone. He did understand how she was reduced to such a sorry state this time, though, because this particular stretch had been horrible to everyone in Akatsuki, not only her.

He returned his attention to the mortar and pestle in his hands as he sat by the side of the bed, crushing the contents patiently into a paste. The scent of the herbs hung heavily in the air. It reminded him of how he took care of Sasuke when he was younger, and of Mikoto when their father was on a mission.

When she fainted in the bathroom, he had been counting on her body to stop. It still remained that he was worn out as well and surely didn't have the patience to have this drag on.

"Mmh."

Tired eyes looked up from what he was doing to check on the moan but she was still asleep, dark circles under thick lashes on her pallid, almost translucent complexion and blue strands matted around her face. He resumed his work.

It wasn't like there was anything else that he could do to help Konan earlier so he took the liberty of turning on the tap of hot water. Too tired to care, he outright pulled off her towel and proceeded to slowly lower her into the tub without a second thought. The memory made his pause slightly. Indeed, he had seen naked people before, especially females. His looks made it easy for him to have seen all sorts of things, even some that he could have gone on without ever seeing once, so that had meant nothing to him. She was pretty. That was about how much he would describe her. The likes of his two other house mates would probably use "sexy" or a whole load of other more obscene descriptions but he would like to stick with "pretty".

The idea that he now knew Konan's genetics were the reason for her blue hair made him slightly uncomfortable though.

He had then went downstairs and explained to Deidara and Kisame what had happened as he gathered whatever herbs he needed. Knowing they could handle themselves on their own in the kitchen, he left as fast as he could. Kisame has been giving him that all-too-knowing grin for him to not want to stick around and Deidara plainly asked if he saw her naked.

_"No, I didn't," he lied, turning over a large clove of garlic in his hands to see if it was still good. He then reached out for another._

_"I don't believe you."_

_"I'm not interested if you do believe or not."_

_"So you're saying you're not gonna scrub her down, yeah?" the bomber asked, flipping his blond hair over his shoulder, eerily reminding him of Inoichi's daughter._

_"Yes."_

_"Whatever suits you, then fine, un. Hey, I say we dare you something," he continued, exchanging a glance with Kisame that didn't escape him._

_Itachi straightened up and set down the chosen plants on the table, setting his hands on the surface to lean and stare wearily at the two of them. Here they were again. He was one of the younger ones in the organization but he surely didn't join any of their elementary plans. Deidara and Hidan had their own fair share of horsing around and most of the time they ended up having Kisame on their side._

_"I say, pretty boy, you bed her."_

_This was accompanied with a chortle as his partner grinned._

_"Excuse me?"_

_"You bed her," Deidara repeated, complete with obscene hand gestures, softening his voice in case Konan was awake and might hear them. "You know. You bang her. Fuck her. Make love to her. Just as long as you stick your dick in there, yeah? Heck, you're a genius, you should know what I mean."_

_Itachi stared humorlessly at those blue eyes whose pupils were dilated as wide as a crackpot's._

_"You're starting to sound like Hidan."_

_Both his partner and the blond dissolved into laughter. So apparently one of the more rowdy people dies off and then another one would willingly take his place. He shouldn't be surprised if the leader is able to recruit another who had more or less the same personality as these two in his kitchen right now, just to replace the spot Hidan left when he disappeared._

_"Then why don't you just do it you yourself?" he asked, straightening up again and crossing his arms over his chest. __Their proposition honestly interested him in the minutest form but he just didn't want to get involved in the juvenile behavior. Fact remains that being the religious type, Konan would be unwilling to have sex with anyone. Probably a virgin even, like batshit crazy Hidan._

_"Doubt that." Kisame nonchalantly swigged a cup of tea. "Just, you know, get her into bed with you. You're the only one here who has the best chance at it anyway."_

_"If I were your best chance, then I would have to rape her to do it."_

_More manic laughter. He resisted the urge to roll his eyes._

_"Whatever it is you're both thinking, I don't want any of it," he finally said, picking up the array of herbs on the table. "She's the Leader's partner. I don't want to get into any mess."_

_"Heh. Really now? She's pretty fuckable if you haven't noticed. Sooo fuckable."_

_A bolt of lighting temporarily outshone the light in the room, followed by a crackling of thunder. It lighted the grins of their teeth like mad wolves. Itachi shrugged as he grabbed the mortar and pestle by the side of the blond and walking out._

_"So are a lot of other women," he replied as he paused by the doorway. "Now if you excuse me, I still have to transfer her. Make sure to get a medic in here the next time you go out. The hospital posts the weakest guards by the west side."_

Itachi heard a sigh and he turned again to look at Konan, now awake.

"Drink this," he said, instinctively reaching out to the the mixture of honey, tea and some reviving potion he found stocked in the basement of the house, handing over a cup to Konan.

For a few seconds she just stared at him, a mixture of confusion and another emotion that he couldn't quite place at the moment. It was in this warm and muted light, the angle that the orange glow hit her irises, that he could make out the vague pattern in her blue gray eyes, something he found quite interesting as he watched her while she turned her sleepy stare to the mug. They looked a little like lavender this time.

"Drink," he repeated, a little firmer this time as he placed the bowl he was holding on the side table. Her slate colored eyes flicked back to him, more alert and awake as he watched her rosy lips slightly press together. "It should help."

He watched her slowly she pull herself up, stiffening when he reached out with his free hand to steady her by the shoulder. She kept holding the blanket protectively to herself when taking the cup. He let go, watching her take a small sip, make a face, then down the rest. They really didn't have anything to go on here, no small talk to make, nothing to explain. Once more, the Uchiha found the taunt of Deidara niggling at his thoughts as he remembered that yes, he did see her naked, his eyes following the trail of the light on her neck, the soft shoulders, the curve down her between her bre...

"Thank you," she murmured, voice a little raspy from the ordeal, looking at the bottom of the cup with hooded eyes and unruly blue hair.

Reaching out, he slowly raked away the damp fringes from her forehead, something he noticed made her redden as he held his hand against her skin to check her temperature. When he first grabbed from the floor, he realized she was cold. Too cold, deathly cold to be precise, that it was like touching a week old corpse. She felt much warmer this time.

_She has blue hair not only on her head._

Reasons as to why that thought re-entered his head made Itachi want to squirm. He wasn't used to thinking suggestively of people he had to interact with in a professional manner.

"I'm okay." she told him as he watched her lips while she spoke.

"No. You're not." _I'm not as well._

He watched her swallow and avoid meeting his eyes and he seriously didn't know what he should say to cut the tension between them. Social situations, for criminals like both of them, that called for decent socializing skills were very few and far in between. He pressed his lips together, resisting the urge to walk right out of the room just to avoid her. Anyone had to be downright retarded to not know how being in a bedroom with an almost naked woman could possibly end and it agonized the Uchiha that she was his superior.

He was annoyed that Deidara had dirtied his mind.

This range of emotion she now displayed was much more than what she showed him in their whole past. He thought previously that he had a good grasp as to how he can interact with her but now he was completely perplexed_._

Dealing with Konan as a house mate and taking care of her or some other domestic thing wasn't in his list of expectations. The last time he did something of the sort was with Sasuke when he was 7 and was sent home from school because he had a raging fever. Now _she_ was in his house, on his bed, sick as a leper and there was no one else assigned to attend to her. Needless to say, he felt miffed at the backfiring plan, annoyed the back ups haven't arrived yet, and most of all very awkward in dealing with the leader's partner this way.

Scratch that. He would be fine playing nurse to her if only Deidara hadn't pointed out she was, as the blond would put it, "fuckable".

Without saying anything and without thinking, his tired mind told him to reach out and pull away the blanket from her to get this over with. Then it dawned him, her voice stopping him short.

"Wait!"

**ooo000ooo**

Itachi froze. Konan bit her lip. She had instinctively thrown up her arms to cover herself. As to why she merely told him to stop and not immediately swat his hand away, she didn't bother knowing why.

"I'm sorry," he apologized, surprise also catching him. He looked... confused.

Konan swallowed hard, keeping her arms across her chest. Every movement she did in front of him became excruciatingly awkward. Somewhere between drinking the concoction and Itachi languidly brushing the hair out of her face she realized that there was something amiss. When she came about, she had immediately noticed him sitting on the bedside and deduced that, _Yes. It's Itachi who comes to rescue the damsel in distress._ She could gag on that description all over again if she could. That wasn't the worst part.

She was wearing a different towel.

She smelled like soap.

He bathed her. He _bathed_ her.

Her face started to feel hot. To have done that, he would have had to seen her naked. To smell like soap, he would have had to touch her. Yes. There was no other conclusion. _Who gives a cuss? He... he..._ She couldn't think of any foul name to call him. Maybe if she kept still for long enough he would suddenly disappear. The last thing she could remember before fainting was feverishly praying to Amaterasu, Tsukiyomi and Susanoo that the person who was helping her wasn't Itachi. Upon waking up, she realized she should have prayed to a rock instead because those three apparently really favored those with sharingans and he was right there.

Right there in part orange light and part darkness, watching her with heavy eyes and his hand resting on the blanket covering her knees.

_Oh, the kind of girls that you brats must keep company with, _she thought, barely narrowing her eyes at him. _You must think that every girl would be dying to sleep with you just because you have a pretty face. The nerve._

Her embarrassed gray blue eyes now was tinged with a little disdain as she tried to hold her head up high. She was _still_ his superior.

She can be mature about this. If it was any other person who had tried to rip off the blanket, who knows what she could have done. However, this was her host. And this was Itachi, they could have gone head to head and decimated the house even without chakra if she attacked him for no reason. He always had a valid reason for anything he did. _Right? _She wanted to hear it coming from him.

"Uchiha, what happened?" she asked calmly.

"I gave you a bath."

A few seconds passed where his oppressive gaze uncomfortably lingered over her features before his unreadable eyes broke away from hers to go somewhere on the bed sheet beside her.

The sound of rain was the only other thing she could hear in the room aside from her beating heart, muffled but loud and ever present. It didn't take away from his velvety tone that sounded a little strained. She could see now he also appeared fatigued, and appeared to dislike the condition they were in as much as her. He was still avoiding looking her, the amber lamp on the side table casting dancing shadows across his face.

"I see."

She could almost swear that he sighed, however soft it was. Like she didn't know he didn't desire being interrogated.

"If you're bothered about it, I didn't touch you with any malice," he added curtly.

Konan's eyes followed the fall of his untied hair at the locks that curved around his ear and disappeared behind his shoulder, exposing his neck and she watched his throat as he swallowed. There was something about his voice that she liked, the modulated notes giving a sense of calm and coolness that never left him even in the heat of battle. It wasn't often that she heard him speak, feeling it was such a shame that he wasn't talkative.

The deepness of his voice had a profound quality to it. Even as a teenager when he joined Akatsuki, his voice was lighter but felt incredibly mature that she had immediately judged him to tolerate no bullshit. Compared to Nagato's, there was a mesmerizing quality to the Uchiha speaking that not even Madara had. Every time he talked, he made her feel... dominated.

_NO._

Guilt felt like ice water dumped over her as she looked away from the man in front of her. _No one else but Nagato would dominate over me_. She winced at the thought of him finding out what she had been just thinking. The very idea of her thinking that someone else would be able to exude this much influence over her other than her partner was appalling in the least. It felt like an incensing fire inside of her. A question popped in her head, and she pushed away the dread she felt of the accusation.

"Did you do anything else to me that I should know about?" she asked, tone colored with a bitterness she wasn't able to mask completely.

Obsidian eyes flicked back darkly to her, his body quite obviously tensing at the insinuation. He straightened where he sat, his jaw set and posture rigid that she felt the atmosphere turn ominous, the hair at her nape prickling. She realized too late that she should have just held her tongue.

"I did not not," he replied tersely, low baritone sounding so dangerously quiet and powerful in the half-dark, half-orange room with her sitting half-naked in his presence. He leaned forward. "But let's cut the bullshit."

Itachi stood up, leaning close toward her as he gripped the edge of the blanket again, his warm fingers brushing against her. His tone had warped into something more commanding, his words a tremor in the still air of the room and his breath that smelled of chamomile tea warmly fluttering across her face as he spoke against her ear, almost too close for comfort.

Not even. It _was_ too close as their faces were inches apart and she could see the fine details of his lashes and the creases in his lips. She swallowed dryly, unable to keep her eyes off those lips of his.

_Goddamnit, what are you doing?_ her inner voice as she couldn't pry her eyes away from his imperceptive gaze.

His hand came to rest on her other side, pressing into the mattress that she felt caged in, her first instinct to back away as his movement brought their bodies even closer than ever for the briefest of moments, causing Konan's breath to be caught somewhere between her lungs and her throat. The general population of her brain cells went to a dirty place right and started screaming insipidly lewd insinuations loudly. Very.

Somewhere in there the rational ones were trying their damndest to find some other logical reason as to what he was doing.

_Too close for comfort_, her mind told her as she pressed her arms to her chest even more, her skinned knees even tighter together, ashen eyes widening as she tried leaning back and away from the Uchiha's frame invading her personal space.

She had only been intimate with one other person in her life, and that took something like 7 goddamn years to let him get into her pants. This one, this person, this man, this... this... fuck that, this _boy_ whom admittedly she knew for a long time but damn it, she didn't know him the tiniest bit on a personal level. There was no chance she would let him get that far. _Maybe he is... oh I don't know, going to dress your wounds and is just preparing you for it?_

The ten or so brain cells that told her this however were getting mauled by the rest of the millions, her pulse beating loudly in her ears and adrenaline attacking her tired and thudding heart, going _"Stop him before he... !"_and all other kinds of suggestions that made her want to cringe at just the thought.

_No. He's not like the rest of them. He at least has honor, and I'm__ their leader's _partner_ of all people. He uses his head, he's__–_

Everything that was blazing inside Konan's mind during that split second suddenly blanked out as she stared, pink lips parted, red-faced and stunned, silvery gray eyes meeting Itachi's inky blackness in disbelief.

The Uchiha had reached under her leg, just beneath where the towel ended, his finger grazing her skin and effortlessly sliding beneath to gently but powerfully grip under her knee, beneath the terry cloth, fingertips digging into her leg before slowly pulling it up out of the blanket. All respect thrown out the window for her dignity, Konan reacted with the most basal instinct she knew, to–

_SLAP._

* * *

**AN: **Surprisingly, the story is flowing much freely from me now than it did three years ago. Someone mentioned a sassier Konan. I broke away from the Sakura mold mindest I had three years ago (as I wrote the first two chapters in tandem with GoV) and here is... Konan. Ta-da.

Hope you enjoyed this long overdue update. :D


	4. Surviving Guilty Pleasure

For some reason I find Konan to be more veering toward a tsundere character. What the hell. Originally this started with being a he-will-bang-her-the-end fic, but a wild plot has appeared! And I've decided to take that course.

Lovely set of reviewers I have, you're all just so lovely I could glomp you, welcoming me back and loving this and everything. :D

Wouldn't hurt to try playing Goodbye Goodbye or Misery while reading. I've written this to those and a few others.

**10apr2012:** Edited typos.

* * *

**Scorpio: Blood Saga of the Dead War  
**Part IV: Surviving Guilty Pleasure

_"As I taste your lips, both right and wrong."_

* * *

The slap resounded solidly across the bare room.

Itachi's cheek stung as heat suffused from where Konan's hand came in contact with his cheek and radiated outwards across his face. Rubbing the stinging skin gingerly, he looked back to confront the culprit who appeared as much in shock about what happened as he felt, light blue eyes wide with surprise, lower pink lip caught between her teeth.

He could feel with his fingertips where the welt was starting to form, the strength of a kunoichi's hand far different from that of an ordinary village girl, and he couldn't help but be amused by the fact that he had seriously not seen that one coming. Still, he was somewhat in a mild state of shock.

"What—"

"Don't," Konan quickly cut him off, smooth, bare shoulders slightly shaking.

She was livid. Or at least emotional enough that her white skin was blotched with red across her nose, down her neck and spreading beneath her delicate collarbones. She was trying to keep a straight face but it was now failing her, orange light flickering and playing with shadows around the room.

"Just... don't," she repeated, closing those gray blue eyes, shaking her head.

He blinked.

Konan sighed, opening her translucent gaze to fix them on him, a mask pulling up that wiped all emotion out of her face with the brisk professionalism she always wore during meetings, clearing her throat loudly.

"Your hand was cold," she told him dismissively. "Please don't do that again."

Quiet stillness with cracks of rolling thunder filled in the background. Seemed to him that she was lying through her teeth just so she would have a reason to give him for the slap. If anyone was cold between the two of them, it was her.

It now appeared to him that she was taking things the wrong way and, as his partner will now be able to laugh his ass off with Deidara downstairs, a great misunderstanding came to settle between him and his leader's prissy female partner. It touched upon his thoughts that had she only been a man, there would be no complications such as the one he was buried in for the moment and he'd just chuck some healing plants Konan's way and be done with it. Easy as pie.

This part of dealing with her, this dainty lady stuff, felt somewhat like a tinge of his old life, the mighty bother of niceties and formality when dealing with other socially stuck up people. This part wasn't amusing.

But she was a girl, after all. And even with status and strength and understanding, there were just some things that he would always have to deal with when it came to them. It made it all the more interesting when he contrasted his relationship with Konan to the way he dealt with the rest of Akatsuki, Pain and Madara included.

The likes of Hidan and Kisame were free to grunt and act line boneheads in his presence, actually bothering to physically interfere with him whenever possible, ranging from nudging him awake to grabbing him by the ponytail, the latter of which only happened once and the results effectively discouraging anyone from managing to try it again. For her though...

Had he been a lesser person, he would have rolled his eyes.

The Uchiha could contemplate the complexities of how women and men had different thought processes during any other time than this. He knew he could hold his emotions well, but with his fatigued body just about giving up, sapped of strength and numbed by lack of sleep, he wanted to push the dillying and dallying out of the way and just get on with whatever he needed to do. The fact that she was thinking that he might have, for lack of a better term, perverted her, that itself sat with him very unpleasantly.

"Listen," he said softly, not bothering to conceal the unimpressed disdain in his tone. "We're both tired. If you want to wait until Zetsu is able to abduct a nurse of your preference, then by all means, just tell me."

**ooo000ooo**

There was a stiffness to his body language and darkness in his voice telling Konan she had ticked him off, detecting at least some annoyance in the way he spoke to her. Konan had never seen him smile with those beguiling lips, and he was indicating right now that she wouldn't be able to see that in any near future. _Seriously, boy? Are you mocking me when _I_ am supposed to be the one angry here? That is just so _rich_, you bastard._

Of course, none of those words ever passed between her teeth. She smiled acerbically at him.

"Why would I need a nurse?" she asked pointedly.

He gave her a strange look that she read as: _Are you an idiot?_

Her heart still hadn't slowed down much since she pushed him away earlier, and the way he was watching her with those sharp eyes wasn't exactly helping. The appeal of his ingrained brooding calm managed to easily thwart any sense of her temper and reduce her to feeling like she was throwing an unnecessary childish tantrum. It irked her to no end.

No. She was not a spoiled kid, _he_ was. She would not be left feeling like she was the one who erred when it was quite so obvious he was overstepping her boundaries. She had originally held him to this ideal of possibly being the only gentleman who had been inducted in the organization.

Now, he was proving that like all men, he was still lured by that carnal pleasure that made him too touchy feely for her liking. Disgusting.

He was no different from the morons who didn't take her seriously enough. Her plight as the only female member was indeed a delicate one yet she still had to put her foot down at some point. Itachi sliding his hand across her leg definitely was way past the line.

No matter how those mysterious, sinister eyes were now burning her very soul, no matter how how menacing his aura in the dimness of their surroundings, how he seemed to create this image of stoic airs, how he makes everyone feel so inferior, how he seems so goddamn _untouchable_. She was never going to fall for that.

_I can just cut your pretty face up, you sad, pathetic, little baby. And stop looking at me with those emotionally depressive eyes. You can go commit suicide for all I care._

She couldn't help the animosity in her mind effectively painting him in a bad light. He can look all pretty all he liked, but it wasn't going to change a thing about how she felt about him. He was too good looking for his own good.

He moved slowly, fluidly, even in his low energy state, and gestured toward the bedside table. She followed his hand.

Then tried to control a swallow.

Plants were littered on the desk beside the lamp. Bandages and cotton, some oils that shone and sparkled in the low light, a few ceramic bottles with no label to indicate the contents. She could remember subconsciously taking note of these when she had just woken up but it had been carelessly swept away in the rush of the events. They surrounded what looked like a healing salve in a clay grinder, something the Uchiha apparently was making before he handed her that drink moments ago.

_Oh._

Her runaway ego deflated like a balloon. The previous ten rational neurons that had told her he was going to play medic rejoiced with a cheer at the back of her mind, the rest scolding her about the bad habit of judging people too much too soon, the feeling of shame gnawing at her insides.

Unfortunately, it only watered her dislike of him, making it grow and start budding, the insolent boy proving her wrong on so many counts. Damn him. Her light eyes fixed themselves back to meet his black gaze, covering up her bruised ego by trying to casually brush back the mess of cobalt hair from her face.

She vaguely noticed his tiredness more easily this time, along with that distinguishable unsmiling trait of his cupid-bow lips, and inwardly sneered. The appeal that he exuded was extremely magnetic, she had to grudgingly admit at least that to herself, irritatedly guilty that she wanted to keep staring at him, his dark features, those long, heavy lashes that would put any girl to shame, those lips, those _lips _when he spoke, the grace and how he held himself when he moved, how she might just lose herself in the deepness of his voice.

She was torn between bitter scorn and grudging admiration.

"If you don't mind," he asked quietly against the background of the pattering of drops on the tile roof, "I'll begin."

Konan's tongue felt like cotton and hoped it wasn't obvious she didn't want to talk, holding her head up proudly and pretending she wasn't affected. It was a bit arresting to have someone like him be subservient to her. He was obliged to as her subordinate, in a way, but him being physically doing it was such a difference from just being someone she interacted with through orders on occasional holograms and rarer face to face meetings.

He reminded her of the lords and ladies whom she witnessed back when she was younger, all highbrow on their carriages and the lavish life they led. She could easily imagine him growing up in a similar environment, giving orders and taking wealth in, genteel and unable to function without help. Being able to serve was something she wouldn't describe him with.

The wind howled through the cracks and tepidly entered the warm room, rifling lightly with his raven hair and raising goosebumps on her skin. The silence was pregnant between them, heightening her senses. It dawned on her too late that he had been asking her permission with his previous words as his eyes lingered on her like black, unwavering fire.

She nodded uneasily.

She'd heard somewhere it wasn't good practice to look Uchihas in the eyes, what with them being savants with illusions, not to mention in being pricks as well. Such a funny thing that the legend others were be afraid of is what she had come to regard as a common sight. An easily alluring sight.

_Konan, watch it_, she berated, slightly alarmed at where her mind was taking her.

The longer that she watched those dark gray irises flecked with the orange light, the more she was convinced that she could almost glimpse the scarlet bloodline limit hiding behind his impassive gaze. But by then she could already feel her defenses against sleep weakening, and she closed her own eyes to rest them as they had grown heavy and torpid.

His words lulled her even more as she picked up on that slightly annoyed albeit dulcet tone once more. "If you slap me again, you're going to have to wait until tomorrow to get this done."

They fluttered open halfway to witness him slowly reaching out his hand for her leg, hesitantly this time, keeping his heavy stare on her, watching her reaction and monitoring every breath she made, observing her as she observed him. She didn't say a word of protest as he inched closer, and she tried to push sleepy thoughts out of her head, her fight against confusion now turning into a fight against sleep. It wouldn't do to be conking out in his presence, much less doing it twice in a single night.

For a second time, his fingers brushed against the side of her leg and there was a sudden fizzle of electricity from the contact of his skin against hers, an unexplainable feeling that she didn't know was possible, wanting to both lean into the touch and pull away at the same time, struggling against the compelling impulse to close her already-tired eyes to it, tracking how his long, slender fingers curled around under the bend of her knee and gently pulling her closer towards him.

She could feel the blush returning to her face and wrenched away from the irresistible pull of his gaze to stare at their shadows on the dark side of the room.

_You are nothing. You are but a _boy_ who knows nothing of the world and you will _never _understand what I..._

Her leg came to rest easily on his lap and she secretly basked in the heat radiating off his body, thoughts trailing away like evaporating mist. For someone who played so cold and so unapologetically stand offish, Itachi felt human. More human than even herself. Like a god locked in some mortal form. Like the Nagato she previously knew.

_No,_ she hissed at herself. Nagato was more than this mere fledgling.

Missing beats, Konan realized she began discerning things unfolding like time had slowed down to a near standstill, as if everything was warped in a dreamlike state. It felt powerfully alluring to watch the Uchiha taking the pillow beside her, then leaning ever so close (_and smelling like mead and slight sweat and musk and pure extraordinary..._), leaning over with his chin grazing the side of her neck that set her nerves ablaze, a strong arm softly tracing across behind her shoulders and pulling her even nearer as he fixed the bolster against the headrest for her to lean on.

The material of his shirt felt rough as it moved when he did, the cloth dragging across her inner thighs, his hot breath flirting on her neck, tickling her behind her ear, and the dark strands of his hair trailing from his shoulders to slip down and brush over her hands and throat. He lazily pulled away from her, catching her ice colored gaze anew.

The intensity of their physical proximity made her eminently aware he wasn't doing this to bother her, musing as she paced her breathing. She mused that there was just a certain quality that made every move, every touch, every caress, seem to have some esoteric purpose behind them that seemed to linger. The way he spoke with his velvet intonations, the way he can effortlessly look blasphemous, the way he saw the world through those cursed eyes.

She didn't want to feel this way. She was too old for this. She wasn't supposed to be like this but here she was, practically lounging in his arms like some giddy little girl who had a crush on him. She was... Wait. No. That wasn't right. She wasn't...

"Is there still something wrong?" he asked, breaking through her musings.

Konan's comprehension kicked in through the exhaustion, enough for her to say the least damaging thing she could think of at the moment.

"Itachi-san, has anyone told you you're a jerk?" she muttered against his cheek.

**ooo000ooo**

Itachi carefully tucked away the end of the bandage to secure it into place, finishing off her right elbow as his eyes trailed back to the serene look her her face. She was sleeping peacefully in a halo of her blue hair and he felt he wasn't too far behind. The empty space beside her was more enticing to his wearied body than he wanted.

She had called him a jerk earlier and he ignored it, remaining silent and choosing so because he didn't know to respond.

He took a deep breath, looking at the his work across her body, white gauze wrapped around her joints, on ankles and knees, and now he just needed to finish her arms then he could rest. His eyes wandered to his last uncompleted job that had been on his lap as he worked earlier. Her wrist. He took it into his hands, palms sliding down her lower arm from where they were working on her elbow to finally come to encircle it in his calloused palms, shifting to a more comfortable position where he sat on the bed.

Her pale skin felt smooth and soft, telling him of being well taken care of in her adult years as she and her companions grew in power to be able to skip the part of close quarter combat and hand to hand fighting.

He flicked a thumb lightly over the injured wrist, skin peeling and raw pink, Konan not even flinching in the deepness of her sleep. Taking a little of the salve, he applied it, liberally covering and massaging it gently into the ragged mess. It wasn't too bad, seeing that she wasn't dying from it nor was it serious, but he knew it had to be annoying.

After those last words from her, he simply carried on like he heard nothing. There wasn't much to say so they instead shared a very peculiarly mutual, then-comfortable silence. She had merely watched him after that, those hauntingly hooded eyes, ice gray irises dilated in the dim light, cheeks rouged red from whether fever or she found the room too heated, he couldn't determine at the time, full lips that occasionally hissed when his fingertips pressed into her too hard.

Although he managed to conceal it, he was definitely bothered, seeing the pinpricks of sweat glittering on her brow. He could just imagine Kisame and Deidara having the time of their life had they the privilege of witnessing them earlier.

The way her eyes turned feral and narrowed at him, how she writhed under his touch, lips pressing together, the simple act of slowly turning her face away from him as those girlish hands tightened around the maroon towel, eyebrows furrowed, legs sliding together, against each other, exposing flushed neck and skin to his view. Needless to say, he had moved out from between her legs the earliest chance he got.

He wasn't too keen on meeting her smoldering gaze, and avoided looking at her directly at any cost. He hadn't been with a woman for some time now and Konan's actions were bordering on agonizing.

_"She's pretty fuckable if you haven't noticed."_

The bomber's words echoed in his head as he absentmindedly stroked her knuckles, her hand soft in his. He was free to watch her now without those eyes following his every move.

_I have other more important things to do than this. _He kept repeating that phrase to himself.

Itachi sighed, pulling his gaze away from those peacefully closed eyes, the extremely youthful face that looked closer to his age than that of his mother, and reached out for a roll of gauze, methodically wrapping her wrist snugly in the cotton fabric, concentrating on any welcome distraction.

He didn't know how Pain would react were he to find out about this, either to his partner being bedridden, or him encroaching on what could be considered as his territory. Frankly, he could simply ask Madara to keep the ire of their Leader from spilling onto him, but he considered that practically a low blow to both ego and standing in the organization. He'd rather not go that far, but he would certainly need the help of the Uchiha founder if Konan called foul, if only just to avoid any bad blood in Akatsuki.

The purple paint on her nails was chipped, he noticed as he started binding her wrist, but it didn't take away from the appeal of her small hands, slender yet not bony, and smooth like the rest of her. _Like the rest of her_. His uncanny observation noted that even though the thick, deep red towel was still in place, the edge had pulled away from where he secured it when he hastily wrapped her in it earlier, the border now tauntingly lying untucked near her underarm.

The Uchiha closed his eyes, running a hand through his hair, his fingers tightening around her hand, exhaling audibly at the images that started filtering through his overtaxed mind. This was bad. He had to finish up and get out of there.

She suddenly made a soft noise at his grip, the last straw rendering him exasperated that he immediately released her hand. He stared at her, making sure she wasn't waking up.

Standing up, he swiftly pulled the blanket from underneath her and draped it across her body, making sure to tuck it beneath her chin to conceal everything but her face from him. Her blue lashes were a deep purple in the flickering orange light, clear, soft skin pale like the sallow environment of Hidden Rain, the piercing on her lower lip winking silver light as she breathed deeply.

He didn't want to linger. He didn't have to.

She reminded him of his first. It was strange because no one else did. He had the occasional girls who he would be visiting regularly for periods of time, had others of different ages, hair colors, eyes, features, personalities, but no one even came close to reminding him of the first time he ever was with a woman. The apprehension of what went on in her head, her thoughts, his anxiety at what would happen, the mystery of the unknown. How it basically felt to not know.

A crash of thunder boomed just outside the house and his heart fluttered. The smell of rain filled his senses once more as his mind delved back into the past, flashes of pressing his face into midnight curls and tears in scarlet eyes making him tense and his fingernails dig into his palms.

He never expected that feeling to be resurrected. It reminded him of a forgotten yearning for an unholy indulgence that felt both right but just so wrong all at once.

He wondered how she could incite that same emotion. There was remotely nothing similar between Konan and her. Physically, they were as different as they come. Personality wise, if he included what he witnessed in the last thirty minutes, Konan could drown her out in a heartbeat. Strength... that wasn't even a comparison.

_Age_.

It flitted through his thoughts.

He brushed the ghost away, returning to the present.

Dwelling on his humanity was something he had to stop. He made a pact all those years ago to bring the Uchiha massacre secret to the grave, and keeping his feelings in check had to be a constant, everyday process for him.

Satisfied that Konan was modestly hidden from his view, he reached down, forcing his overriding emotions back into place and almost imperceptibly sliding his arm underneath her neck without waking her up, lifting her carefully to pull out the extra pillow from behind, then gradually lowering her back down when his pulse traitorously broke free from his control and began racing, drumming.

Letting go of the bolster, his hand pressed deep into the mattress for support and holding his breath, he stared at her visage, sensing the rise and fall of the comforter as she breathed, taking in her serene appearance with head still resting pleasantly on his arm, her body finally warming after being out of the deranged weather. He toyed with the thought of how it would be feel her beneath him, to rest his weight over her, to experience pressing against those lips, to taste something forbidden...

It was really time for him to leave.

Before he could move away, Konan's eyes suddenly were trained upon him, lids fluttering half open to reveal the crystal clear, gray blue eyes moderately brightened by a slight fever, unwaveringly fixed on him.

He froze.

She moved, faster than he expected, a soft hand (_smooth like the rest of her..._) coming up to rest lightly on his cheek. He wasn't sure if it was because his hair had fallen to surround them, casting them both in deceiving shadows that he didn't know if it was a small smile that formed on those full, pink lips. Or if the smile reached and mellowed those eyes so that in the small, dark haven between his arms, she appeared completely different than her brisk, dismissively uncaring exterior he was used to.

The light of the lamp penetrated through thin slivers across her face as she blinked slowly, her thumb passing lightly over his lips that he felt anxiety begin twisting in the pit of his stomach, aware how he was positioned over her, unable to look away from that pretty mouth. His eyesight was really betraying him, because he was quite sure she was smiling at him now. Beckoning, inviting, enticing him. He mused how Pain would definitely be out for his blood.

That pretty mouth moved, turning into a slightly fuller smile, then spoke.

"I'm sorry."

Her touch caressed the mistreated cheek she had slapped earlier, then as quickly as she had reached out to hold him, her hand slipped back under the covers, those eyes closing to hide their haunting gaze, releasing the pressure he felt under their scrutiny, and she turned her back on him to face the side and fall back to the clutches of slumber.

He let out the breath he didn't realize he was holding for that long, staring incredulously at the blue hair in front of him, jaw clenching, taking a few moments to compose himself.

He didn't know if she was doing it on purpose, if she seriously knew what she was doing just moments ago, whether she intentionally made those noises while he wrapped bandages or she had completely no idea it could have resulted in someone raping her had she been no kunoichi and him a lesser man.

He pushed himself off the bed (_off her..._) and stood by the side table, silenty watching the subtle movement of her shoulders, likely already getting lost in dreams. Judging by her reaction upon waking up, the reason he got slapped in the first place, he wouldn't say she knew.

His hands felt slightly sticky from handling the herbs, and he breathed deeply, dark eyes narrowing at her silhouette. From the door of the room, a voice interrupted his thoughts, breaking the moment.

"Sleeping like a baby, yeah?"

Itachi turned to look at the owner, meeting Deidara's mocking stance as the blond leaned on the edge of the rice paper door, grinning with his suggestive madness, hands pocketed. The trademark Akatsuki cloak was gone and he was wearing the basic fishnet shirt and black pants as him.

He didn't know how long he had been standing there, and how much he had seen to be able to warp and misinterpret as he babbled it to his partner, all to make fun at his expense. He felt like pushing the blond through the fragile entrance but instead gave him a shrug.

"It's nothing," he said, throwing a final glance at Konan before turning to switch off the lamp and walking out, brushing past the other member of the organization as he stepped into the hallway, feeling like a big intake of fresh air after being stuck in the room with their leader's partner for the last hour.

**ooo000ooo**

"Hah!"

Itachi continued down the hallway and Deidara continued to smirk, watching the sleeping figure in the darkness of the room.

Kisame had offered to prepare a late dinner in the kitchen and he took the opportunity to bound off to see what had been happening upstairs. Damn, of course he knew it would be interesting to know hail almighty dear madam Konan's situation, as it seemed a lot of unusual occurrences were happening too frequently lately. This was fun. It was like something was at the beginning stages of a brilliant explosion. How he would love to be part of making that grow into a full blown catastrophe, to help bring it to its fullest potential.

"Close it when you're done ogling," he heard him add and he turned to see the back of the retreating Uchiha as he ambled down the hall.

He flitted after him, but not before stealing a last glimpse before and sliding the door closed, then running to catch up, audible footsteps on the hardwood floor following his host.

"The room feels odd. Like, you know, chakra, Itachi-san," he commented as they traversed the sparsely lit hallway, peeking to see catch a glimpse of his companion's face. "Like someone used chakra very, very recently."

The moment he stepped up the landing, he had managed to catch Itachi just about straightening up from Konan on the bed with a very strange look on his face as he watched her there. Very strange, in fact, that he managed to not even notice his shiny gold hair winking like a torch as he cleared his throat and walked right to the doorway. Now, he was as good as anyone at trying to surprise somebody, but Itachi was one of the people who he never could sneak up on. The stupid look on that face meant something was going on, and he wanted in on it.

"It's mine," the Uchiha replied, meeting his inquisitive blue eyes that were full of mocking humor.

He watched curiously at Itachi's smirk, feeling a sense of cheap, guilty pleasure emanating from the normally stoic man. The fact that he was emanating pleasure at all was some new level of abomination to Deidara, as it seemed like he had this diamond rod growing out of his ass every time.

Well, this time was different, wasn't it now?

"I planted the genjutsu."

Deidara broke into a grin, feeling the slow motion explosion finally beginning to bloom as it caught wind and began scattering its dazzling shine as far as its fuel could. So the bastard had finally decided to joined their plan. Unusual things indeed are happening. Oh, this would be really so much fun.

* * *

**AN:** Egad, sorry it's so long. T.T I couldn't possible find any other good break in the storyline. puppetierin's Bitchdara just had to make a last minute entrance.

Itachi's first, if you haven't guessed, is... :D I'm not telling. I'm writing a oneshot for that because it's a runaway plot bunny, to be finished by next chapter, so when I upload chapter 5 the link will be there. Take a free guess tho and find out who it is Scorpio: Damage Control is done. XD

Comments and reviews, always welcome. And any typos or possible errors you spot.


	5. Velveteen Choker

**AN:** Why oh why. I have interesting things in mind for Itachi but they're not gonna wait until next chapter. Sorry, hehe.

Well, at least this one explains how I think what had happened in Rain. And also, it helps fill in Konan's past. It's hard without a past, you know. Nothing to build on, lol.

Speaking of which, Scorpio: Damage Control has been up for some time now, maybe you haven't seen it yet. It's a take on Itachi's... first encounter with womankind. LOL It's a oneshot because it's kinda a prelude to this story, but also if you don't like how it goes, you can ignore it. :D

I love you guys. I hope I've responded to each of your reviews. If I forgot to answer anything, flick a virtual onigiri at me. -wink-

* * *

**Scorpio: Blood Saga of the Dead War  
**Part V: Velveteen Choker

_"And your hand on my shoulder drifting down."_

* * *

She felt clean. And warm. For the first in a long time, she felt relaxed.

Opening her eyes, Konan was greeted by a gray ceiling, the room no longer lighted by the lamp Itachi worked by from the night before. Instead, the light filtered through the ricepaper panels of the sliding doors. It felt like ages as she lay there, staring at nothing in particular in the solemness of the space. The possibilities of what could have happened with Nagato were endless, and she was only left to agonizingly wait for what would happen next. She disliked it.

Untangling her hands from the thick blanket, she brushed away the hair from her face, sitting up in the shadows. Her gaze drifted to the doors, straining trying to sense what was happening in the rest of the house.

Nothing. There was no one, the absence of sound too deafening. As far as she could feel, the house had nobody.

But she couldn't write off Zetsu. Despite them having the same type of chakra, she never would be able to track him. Yes, she could know when he was there, but it felt more like flukes. She can pinpoint him one way or the other, but most of the time it ended up like a blip where he appeared suddenly then disappeared just as fast from her senses, unable to be found again no matter how hard she tried to track him.

She had always assumed she was never alone, and that suspicion helped her countless times in both taking care secrets weren't spilled or enemy attacks were avoided. However this time, she had let her guard down and she felt lost.

Her chakra crept along the woodwork, marveling at the care put into the house, how everything was laid out and painstakingly labored over. This was no ordinary place.

It was a modest abode, she decided. There was the room she was in, a few more on the same floor she presumed to be for the rest of the family, then the common room directly beneath her along with a mediation area. The kitchen was at the far end, a few other rooms scattered throughout whose uses she didn't know. Despite its size, it still managed to hide secrets.

She inhaled sharply, feeling the presence of Deidara entering through the front door. He was alone.

Suddenly she realized they must have been carrying on the duties assigned to them, moving like the rotation of clockwork at keeping watch and securing the village. She returned her attention to the present. Even knowing she had been out of commission that night, she felt guilt twinge in the recesses of her thoughts about leaving everything else to the men—decisions, tasks, responsibilities—then pushed it away. No use pondering over it after it was over.

For some reason she expected Itachi to be around when she woke up. Apparently she was mistaken.

_Better than being alone. _Konan got up, out from under the comfort of the warm blanket and into the chilly air. The storm overhead still did not relent, crashing onto the tile roof like never ending torrents of rain.

She knew for sure it was her partner's way of monitoring things, an omnipotent presence that allowed for vast quantities of information on the location and movement of citizens. It was unconventional and required high maintenance, but it was rigorously effective. Nagato could only be presently overseeing both their home village and this at the same time, which was why he left them the moment as soon as he could.

There was a slight bitterness she felt against what he did, as he left her without even a word. With their whole lives intertwined, she'd expected he'd at least leave notice about such things. It appeared that men will always be men. And as always, she wouldn't begrudge him this.

_My part still has to be done_, she thought, wearily making her way to the bathroom in the half light. Feeling around in the darkness for the switch, her fingers brushed upon the hard plastic and she clicked it open.

The fluorescent bulb once more blinded her temporarily as it flooded everything in its glaring wash. It was clean, as if it hadn't been used. She was sure the night before—from the snitches she could remember of warm water and broodingly charming features—wasn't only a dream. As she turned on the tap of hot water on the sink, she vaguely wondered how the Uchiha could still have the time or even the patience to clean up after her. Surely there wasn't any else in that abandoned estate except Akatsuki, was there?

She doubted it. Any civilian activity would have been easy to track. But yet even then, she had been too debilitated last night to even be in control of her own self. Such an ass she must have made. Peeling off the towel, the bandages that had been painstakingly bound to her were slowly unwound, discarding them one by one on the stone floor until she stood completely naked in front of the mirror.

Grimacing, she did not like what she saw and dampened the wet towel to try and scrub away at the oily reside of the ointment.

She had grown used enough to how she lived for the past decade and a half to dislike doing chores herself. Even before Akatsuki, Yahiko treated her like a princess despite them being from equal social statuses before and after being orphaned by the war. He would only let her do something if it didn't require much work. Things remained the same when Nagato appeared, then even more when Jiraiya came along.

There was guilt, yes, and she felt it constantly. It came from not doing the menial things that she knew added up to something altogether. She mused how this stranger, someone from clearly a prestigious clan and a former to-be clan head who had anything at his beck and whim, was able to do such tasks for her without complaint.

_Well, you're his second-in-command. He is required to, isn't he?_

The question she posed to herself soured in her mouth. Her position in the organization was a special one, special in a way that others didn't see it. She was connected to the Leader directly, first Yahiko, afterwards Nagato. She knew she would never occupy the position until both died, which oppositely was her greatest fear. They were her precious people, and she did everything she could for it not to happen as losing her first love was enough.

Being the Leader's partner also meant she was generally seen to be in a high enough position to be important and wield enough influence on the head, yet low enough for most to think they could suck up to her without her noticing. They were dimwits.

Most narrow-minded selfish people she had obliterated by hand because they tried indirectly manipulating the Leader through her. It had also been the reason she talked it over with Nagato to rule Hidden Rain through faith in a god, Pain, rather than politics. All to avoid any middlemen altogether.

Not surprisingly it worked. They dealt with their shinobi directly, meting out punishment or reward as as they deemed fit. It was how Nagato as the god Pain, and she as the angel by his side, brought peace to the shinobi village.

It was small enough for the all-reaching technique to blanket with his rain clouds, yet she knew how it took a dangerous toll on his body. In just barely over a year after Yahiko died and both of them took over, he had taken to hiding his real body to prevent from destroying the almighty deific image the shinobi had of him. The constant drain of chakra day and night emasculated him. It left him forceless and depending on the special apparatus she had hurriedly then crafted to keep him alive.

Konan closed her eyes, pausing mid-rub as the memory brought the fresh sting of tears in her eyes. Not now. However, she did cry that time. Wailed in relief and agitation and the stress he had her under as she sat back in exhaustion and he watched her with the heavy lidded Rinnegan. She had been so close to losing him as well that she didn't converse with him for days after managing to get the damned machine running, shoving a cold shoulder in his face every time he tried to apologize. Pain, as it was, surely was both their god.

She continued scrubbing the rough fabric over her limbs, numb to the sting against her flesh.

Being the Leader's partner had its perks. It included not being sociable to anyone, relieving her of the effort to be nice, and granted her to ability to be painfully direct in issuing orders. However, the position had posed the old problem within Akatsuki itself, where politics made a show of rearing its ugly head.

Instead of continuing the way Yahiko did, Nagato decided to apply what they had done with Rain and cut them both from the rest of the group. He would give the orders, Konan would see to the finer details. The group dynamic ended up with the rest of the organization getting to generally decide what they wanted to do and they were left alone as long as the objective was completed.

_Done._

Konan exhaled loudly, pressing her hand against the face of her reflection, her warm breath fogging up the mirror and disappearing quickly before being fogged over again.

The woman who stared back at her between her fingers was worn. Tired. Jaded. She missed the comfort of having Nagato to turn to for assurance. She knew it had to be something urgent, the way he left without any goodbye to her or even an order, but she still felt disappointed. Not to mention, abandoned. She was still human after all, and they've only had each other ever since...

She bit her lip. The blue-gray eyes of the woman in the mirror has the pain of losing Yahiko written all over them, and she had to remind herself that showing emotion was a weakness if anyone managed to see her.

A few minutes later she faded back into the gloom of the bedroom without bothering to notice if anyone had entered. Anyone who had any right to do so had a last name of Uchiha, and Itachi being in the room would make little difference. He had, after all, seen her like this last night and acted like it was nothing. If anything, his professionalism was something she had to admire.

Barefoot and skin puckering at the cold air, she made her way to the garments neatly folded at the foot of the bed. Picking it up, the shirt smelled like him. She didn't know what it was or how, just that he was what came to mind as the fabric slipped over her head. She presumed they were his, pulling on pants too loose for her.

Whatever happened to her clothes from the night before, she had no idea, but as of the moment there were more pressing matters that she had to attend to. Without any orders from Nagato, she had to go on autopilot on this village until something clear comes through from him.

A brief thought passed though her mind as she exited the room. _He smells good._

**ooo000ooo**

She followed the winding hallways to the kitchen, her feet padding on the warm floor. Her chakra had replenished enough for her angel technique to be used but she didn't deem it necessary as of yet. Rather, she had infused the paper of the doors to her room for future use. She couldn't be too sure with anything, to avoid feeling too secure here, and it was better to be prepared.

With a smacking sound, Deidara looking up at her with a rice ball in hand, freezing in mid-bite as she entered the kitchen. He was sitting on the messy table that housed various raw vegetables and a large, covered plate which she suspected was where he was getting his meal of the moment. His free hand was holding onto the chrome cover over it.

"You're alive," he said, unfreezing his face and chewing slowly. "Thought you got offed, yeah."

She didn't know if she felt okay about the casual tone he was using with her. This was another of the things that inevitably happened when she became easily accessible.

He released the lid and slid off from the surface of the table, causing a head of cabbage to roll and bump against the stainless steel dome before he pulled out a chair and promptly sat down. She chose to ignore the remark, hoping the bomber would just drop it off completely at some point.

"Where are the others?" she asked.

"Out. Busy." Cerulean eyes watched her closely with another smack of his lips as he finished the riceball in his hand before digging back for another one. "Getting blasted in the rain, yeah."

She watched him chew thoughtfully, feeling the emptiness in her stomach. Right. She hadn't eaten. Still, she pushed it aside, feeling more than queasy, her stomach's hunger pangs breaching the point where she felt like puking. She had to hold off on any food until her body settled down—which also meant she needed to wait until she found the others and got their reports.

"Are you going back out?" she asked him, her perfunctory tone evenly dressing down any eagerness for information in her voice.

"No. Sucks to be in that stupid duty. Zetsu's spawning bodies, yeah, so we don't need to go out."

Konan tried to keep herself silent about what she heard. Her inability to show her thoughts was a great advantage here where Pain was not by her side. Zetsu was a disgrace for turning tail on her and Nagato, licking Madara's feet like a dog. More of him would also mean more eyes for the Uchiha, and that was one thing she needed to be wary of. He was dangerous. "How about the shinobi from Rain? Have they arrived yet?"

"Haven't seen any of 'em."

_Damn this._ Spotting Deidara's cloak slung over one of the backs of the chairs, the tension in her shoulders eased a bit. It will have to do.

Striding over and grabbing the bomber's robe, she made her way back to the hallway. From behind her, the metal lid clanged as the he scrambled to get up, a "Wait!" making its way through a mouthful of rice and she ignored him.

Bothering to look for her own robe was too much of an inconvenience. Either way she did not want to be found by the owner of the house going through the rooms without any permission.

Rapid footsteps followed her just as she reached the front door. She needed to get out of this place. She needed to know what happened to their Rain shinobi. Finding her shoes still fortunately where she left them, but unfortunately still sodden and cold, she pulled them on.

"But**–**"

"I'll return it to you later," cutting him off, Konan abruptly stopped and turned on her heel to face him just as he appeared from the corner. "I'm only borrowing this for now."

She was slipping an into one of the sleeves when she noticed he was still holding the half-filled plate of onigiri and grinning ridiculously. At the very least, she expected him to be unreasonably sensitive about borrowing his clothes with the way he was chasing her down. Not... smiling like he had a secret.

"Looks good on you, yeah," was all he told her.

_What?_

Her cheeks were warming up and she wondered what he meant exactly. As if reading her mind, the blond cocked his head to the side and took another bite of his food.

"Yeah, the Uchiha symbol kinda seems a bit obvious," he started, blue eyes bright, "but Itachi-san's shirt fits you nicely. It really does, yeah?"

Konan froze, one hand already poking through the sleeve of Deidara's cloak and the other still lost in the black folds. _The Uchiha sym... what is he talking about?_

"What do you mean?"

The triumphant giggling was alarming, yet at the same time the need to run was pressing. If there was anything more annoying, it was the blatant mirth the rest of the organization members had about pulling her strings.

"You know, the _huge_ fan at the back of your shirt? Yeah, I'm ain't gonna let anyone see that if I were you, un."

The next thing she knew he was flicking a ball of rice at her. Reflexes took over and her arm shot out, a paper square snapping and crumpling around the innocent onigiri. A swirl of golden hair was all she saw of the bomber as he bounded back down the hallway, cackling like a madman. It flashed through her mind so many years ago when Itachi was first inducted into Akatsuki, his raven hair matted with blood and sweat and god knew what else. He had been tall for his age, very matured in appearance, but like all children who had seen battle and bloodshed Konan had seen the haunted look in his sharp eyes.

What burned in her memory of the day was how he turned his back on her upon silently receiving his ring, a fire fan spanning most of his shirt beneath his long hair with the red so crimson it was a sin and the white so pristine it ached. He had been so vivid.

Gingerly reaching behind her neck underneath the robe, her fingertips brushed against the edge of an emblem sewn into the fabric, silken and raised to the touch through the years. She knew what it was, and grimaced. Deidara had seen it. She cursed how she could have overlooked this little detail, but there wasn't much she could work around on. Her things were missing and she had no way to find them unless the master of the household came back.

Sighing and chalking this incident up to trivial matters, Konan grabbed the sakkat by the side of the entrance, white tassels flapping wildly from the wind upon sliding open the front door. She needed to know what was going on.

**ooo000ooo**

The rain was a constant mess now, coming from all directions in the high winds of Konoha but not as brutal as it had been the past day. It remained an annoyance, pittering here and pattering there as she quickly made her way on the cobblestones to find her way out of the compound. The mazes of dilapidated houses and the overall sense of abandonment was eminent in the gray wash of morning downpour. From underneath the bamboo hat, she felt comfortable hidden from view, an anonymous identity with only her organization's insignia as a marker to the public.

Spotting an exit up ahead, she hastened her steps. The blond bomber's cloak was a little too baggy for her but everything else was fine. There was the distinct scent of sulfur and soot she could make out, wondering if it was going to cling to her clothes even after she returned it. At least it kept her dry, swathing her in the dense fabric. She vaguely noted that aside from her shoes, everything she had on her person was borrowed.

Suddenly a blast of updraft caused the showers to rush toward her, all loose material thrashing in the wind. Raising a hand to shield her eyes against the rain, the icy wetness on her palm felt like a blaze of energy from beyond, like catching radio waves after listening to static for days, freezing her in her path.

_"Konan!"_

His voice felt like the iron scarlet of his hair, melancholy and wonderful, as bright as the sun suddenly peeking through the clouds. The cascading sheets were no longer an annoyance, welcoming the fall like a lifeline as she ripped off the sakkat and turned her face up to the pouring heavens. She was no longer searching, no longer lost, heart soaring at the timbre of his familiarity. No longer lonely.

_You fucking bastard_, she thought, a bittersweet smile for the ash colored clouds as the water washed over her features, his chakra probing into her identity and confirming her presence. She had waited too long. _He_ had made her wait too long.

She was glad he could not read her mind through this technique, but she still felt the dread at the back of her conscience nagging her at how his real body must be faring, gaunt and thin, the noisy whir of the machine to keep him alive. Her mask did not allow her to shudder, successfully masking her emotions from her partner's prying senses.

"_I was looking for you the whole night. I was worried._"

That was new. New, but expected. She wondered how he found the feeling of worrying about her was. It was an infuriating thing to wait for hours on end, every second a dragging horror of uncertainty and anger with the resonating question of why it was happening. As much as she liked for Nagato to know how she constantly felt, she also felt incredibly shallow at immediately feeling gratified at his presence.

"_Are you okay?_"

Konan nodded. There was no way for her to relay any complex response back to him. He spoke and she listened. That was all what usually happened during these kinds of conversations. But he could feel her, and simple gestures were the best she could come up with at the moment. Never had there been a time she was away from him for so long that she needed to relay important information back through body language.

"_I'm happy to know that. Please take care of yourself while I'm not there._"

_But I want to be back home with you__._ It was pointless for her to want things. This sacrifice of being separated was insignificant to Akatsuki's goal. She needed to be his eyes for him because there was no one else he would trust, with so many faces their traitorous members showed them. She wanted to tell him she missed home, missed his omnipresence. She wanted to say she didn't like being away from him. She missed him. She wanted... she _wanted_...

"_Have Kisame cast the rainfall there."_

The words struck a painful chord. _No._ Not now. Not when she had finally gotten a hold of him after being sick with worry. He shouldn't do this. He _can't_ do this to her, leave her again in the dark with neither support nor security of his presence. Her hands curled into fists and ice blue eyes glared at the dreary sky. The emotional pain seared through her like he had scorned her.

"Why?" she demanded, knowing he couldn't hear her, a rising tide of hurt feelings breaking free. "You've suddenly left me out here and now you leave me again? Can't you at least tell me what's going on?"

She was thankful for the enclosure of the Uchiha compound and the desertion of the area. For the fact no one could see her betraying the technique that made Rain an impenetrable fortress. For no one being around to hear her voice full of emotion, her cold visage falling away and shattering. For talking back to Pain like he was Nagato.

"_Konan, please stop._"

He made her _hope_ against all odds and now he was shooting her down. She went on, going like a dam broken after holding her back for all the things that had run through her head, all those hours thinking of what to say and no one to tell them to, all bottled up to lash at him when they met again. Everything was spilling forth. She knew he could feel her speaking to him (_raging too much inside she could spear tornadoes through his cloud cover because god_damn_ him for not telling her anything and then suddenly abandoning her once more..._), even if he couldn't know what she was saying. She kept on talking, not hearing her own self.

He wasn't dense. He would feel her form standing drenched in the rain, tensely mouthing words to him he wouldn't be able to listen to but be able to completely understand how she wasn't too happy with his decision.

She was about to drop all and just scream at her partner the frustrations pent up inside when suddenly a presence manifested behind her, her jaw tightening at the abrupt intrusion. Nagato would know someone had appeared, and his voice in her head was gone.

"Konan-sama?"

The velvet tone was more welcome to her ears than she expected, the only female in the organization feeling a strange flutter in her chest as she turned around, hoping he hadn't heard her speak to the raining heavens like a lunatic.

He stood there like he did the night he offered his home to her, without his red clouds but a red umbrella over his head. The smile making its way into her eyes was immediately defeated upon seeing the grim expression eclipsing the handsome features (_remembering how he watched her softly from the edge of the wooden tub..._). There was a void growing in heart and filling with dread, confirmed with his next words.

Stepping closer and raising his shade over both of them, he let the news drop.

"The shinobi from Amegakure were ambushed on their way. There are no survivors."

* * *

_Heartache_

_Heartbeat_


	6. Softly Leading

**AN:** Another chapter done. Woot. Sorry for taking so long. This was delayed because the file got lost on a laptop I borrowed to write it on while there was no intartubes. Ferrrk, hahaha. At least it's back now and fixed. Sorry. Not much action, I know. And I apologize again. So much explaining to do and so much atmosphere to create. I'm finding it hard to squeeze in getting into the mood for writing while being bombarded by work, but I promise I'll make any update worth it. At least here, I finally got Konan to make a decision. And hopefully get more things in by the next update.

Damn, Konan is smexy as hell when her coat is off. Kishi's official sketch of her is easily googled. Men, prepare your tissues. I am now convinced she and Itachi would have had gorgeous babies should they have gotten together in canon.

Aaaaaaaaand, yes. This is onehundredfiftyfuckingpercen t longer than usual. :D

Please review with anything you see might be wrong. Typos, grammar, missing/additional words, sucky description, etc. Please make sure to copy paste the phrase it's contained in, so I know where to find it. In being OOC, I respond that this is crack. Oh, yes. This is crack. Enjoy!

Thank you SomebodyLost, Hersheys Rocks, A man of many faces, Little Kunai, and the rest of the followers for the feedback. It's worth all the effort of getting this written down. :)

* * *

**Scorpio: Blood Saga of the Dead War  
**Part VI: Softly Leading

_"To where it doesn't belong..."_

* * *

Dread numbed her as her precious mask of uncaring philosophy slipped off and broke into a million shards before Itachi in a moment of unguarded surprise. He had the decency to look away as she tried to control her reaction, biting down on her lip so hard her piercing drove into her gums. This had to be another of their stupid jokes. Them and their annoying pranks who just couldn't take things seriously, these _boys_ had the audacity to drag her into them. She wanted to scream, _Look at me!_

Yet this was Uchiha Itachi, and she had no reason to doubt his sincerity. Of all the people who passed through their organization, he deserved as much credibility as she. That is, until they arrived here in Leaf.

"Are you sure?" she pressed dangerously quiet, watching him slowly and surely (_clearly __unlike her, what with falling into pieces as if she were some not-good-enough, newly graduated kunoichi..._) bring his those stark gray eyes back to her.

"Yes." Flat and disconnected, as a proper shinobi should be. Unlike her. It burned how a subordinate could be better than her at this.

"But _how_?"

She could not fathom it in the least, unable to wrap her head around how it could be possible one hundred and six of the shinobi they sent for, one hundred and six of the people they carefully watched over in Rain, guarded from insurgents and border-breaching zealots, one hundred and six wiped out. Blotted off the map on their way to a mission, one hundred and six lives just lost like that.

Her hands clenched tightly at her sides. They deserved this show of emotion from her. There had to be no shame in feeling this for them because they were rightfully people whom she cared about, but again she was stubbornly refusing any blatant show of anything on her face after she had struggled to keep her cool in front of an Uchiha. She hated how they could be calculatingly cold. They were waging war but she was never good at handling the losses. She actually cared for those she and Pain lost because they, at least, understood what it was like to protect and revere the peace they all painstakingly earned for everyone in Rain.

The same could not be said for this man in front of her, telling her the sordid news. He had massacred his entire family, one thing she could never understand why, and was as cruelly unfeeling as what she tried to portray. Be it as it must, she would never admit she had taken on imitating his demeanor upon his entrance into Akatsuki.

"Where are they?" she demanded when the Uchiha did not answer (_and that name would always be bitter on her lips because of Madara and how she hated that man for existing and breathing and—_), the sakkat falling from her slackened grip and the woven bamboo bouncing on the rounded stones beneath their feet. She grabbed him as hard as her smaller, shorter frame would allow, exerting enough effort not to shake him that her hands trembled with unreleased fervor.

Those dark, impassive eyes merely stared back down at her, allowing the briefest moments for a flicker of annoyance, before returning to a blank and unflinching expanse of deep gray. At least he was human enough to show some sort of normal reaction. "_Tell_ me."

One of her hands unrelentingly clutching at his shirt was enveloped in his warm palm and for a moment she thought he would twist her arm. Instead her breath stilled when he moved forward, closer to her that she could feel his breath on her lips when he spoke, eyes magnetic and demanding and raising gooseflesh on her skin. When she took a step back, he would not allow her even that, pulling her closer with a strength overriding her own.

"Not here, Konan-sama."

In a swift motion he wrenched her hands free from the cloth, ignoring the wrinkles her grip left. Konan could only follow when he still refused to let her go, leading her back to his house hand in hand underneath the pattering red umbrella.

**ooo000ooo**

Approaching the looming edifice before them, the house's unfamiliarity in the daylight struck her. She had only managed to locate it under cover of darkness and the torrents of rain by the orange lights from within. The image she had was of an abode kept well in the grandeur of the local style of the village, yet it was now clear she was hugely mistaken. It looked as gray and dreary as any other house in the district, a wide structure not towering like the spires of Hidden Rain, but a manse abandoned by all living souls until a night ago going into a slow decay. The walls were growing slick green tapestries, eaves rusting, wooden fences and gates worm-eaten and dark and beginning to rot in the strange wet weather.

Deidara was still inside, of that she was sure of. If he managed to see them like... this...

Light blue eyes fell to her hand in Itachi's and a slow burn crept into her face. Any semblance of closeness to anyone else within the organization besides Pain would not earn her respect from either side, moreso with the likes of her subordinates. Her cheeks were warm when she swept stray hair from her eyes. For a good measure of her reputation being trampled on, Deidara was not known to keep his mouth shut. The fact he had more than one mouth should have given it away. _This __simply will not do._

The Uchiha's fingers curled around hers were gentle but firm, a comfortingly warm touch tugging her along to match his hurried steps. For a reason he had not wanted to speak outside in the open though there had been no one else to see or hear them. How he knew about the deaths of her shinobi and be the one to tell her about it made her suspicious.

"Did someone tell you?" she asked as casually as she could, his body language closely monitored by resilient light eyes as they ascended the front steps. No sign of tenseness, well defined slender shoulders relaxed and movements smooth.

"Yes," was his bluntly clipped answer. He would say no more.

Upon pulling her into the hallway she tried to ease her hand out from his as he waited for her to awkwardly take off her shoes. Much to her chagrin, his hold tightened, a disapproving frown on his cupid-bow lips appearing condescending of her attempt. She felt irked, and tried again as obviously as she could that she liked having her hand in his as much as it being in Kisame's mouth. In response the Uchiha gave her a withering look, fingers lacing into hers in an action that was as confusing as her heart palpitating in her throat. _What are you trying to get at?_

Preparing herself mentally for the inevitable, she resigned to be led by hand through the house by her somber host. If this was what it took to find out what happened, it was nothing but a rough patch her image in Akatsuki could weather. Despite any comforting thought of this not being of any serious matter, all the same it did not change that passing by the kitchen doorway felt like being dragged through broken glass.

"Itachi-san!" The resident bomber's voice was high and excited and she could see the raven-haired man ignore the call. "Hey, I was—"

The statement abruptly morphed into the blond violently choking on his food as Konan came into view. She only managed to catch a glimpse of the him trying to hack out whatever had gone down his windpipe before she was whisked out from his line of sight past the door and down the corner.

This misunderstanding would cost her big. Merely anticipating how this would go down with the rest of the other members made her take a deep breath. What joy it must be to try explaining this to Nagato should it unfortunately reach him. They had no sort of any romantic affiliation (_though kami-sama knows how she always tried so hard and wasn't about to give up just yet..._), still, to hear about something so sudden...

And with an Uchiha, no less. Her red-headed god was privy to knowing she disliked Madara or Tobi or whoever he claimed to be, and so being associated with Itachi would be strange. She narrowed her eyes at the sleek ponytail as they finally reached the second landing, following the trail it followed down the inside curve of his lower spine and feeling a clench in her belly.

He finally let go of her hand in the sterile air of her room to let her enter first, the gloom so dark her eyes had to adjust, the wooden door sliding to a close behind them.

**~x~**

_He was sitting at the foot of the bed, her bed, bare shoulders, bare back. He was reaching for his pants somewhere on the floor. Where was he going, was he leaving her?_

Wait! _she wanted to call out but her mouth refused to open, her body frozen lying beneath the sheets. She couldn't let him go, not like this. Something bad was going to happen when he left. He had to stay. He _needed _to stay. Watching helplessly in silence, she saw him stand up, slipping his feet through the legs of the black fabric and pulling it over his hips. _Stop!

_As if heeding her fervent prayer he paused, looking for something else on the floor. His sandals. She kept watching as her chest constricted when he reached for them, sitting back down. He couldn't hear her, but she wasn't going to just watch him consumed by this folly. There was still time, precious seconds fast ticking away, and she had to get up because he was going to leave her._

_Struggling against invisible forces crushing down on her, she could feel herself rising, pulling free of the blankets, managing to unstick her lips. Her nakedness was apparent but she didn't care because he wasn't supposed to go, he wasn't supposed to step out that door. She didn't know why but she felt something terrible lying in wait beyond those ricepaper panels and she didn't want him facing whatever it was. _Stop it! Just stop!

_He was standing up again as the unseen bonds kept on gleefully holding her back. Pooling all the strength she could muster, muscles straining, jaw almost dislocating as she opened her mouth, she lunged at him._

_"Don't," came the weak croak from her throat, rasping like ages had long passed._

_She connected with him, throwing her arms around his torso and clutching him like a lifeline when the restraints finally snapped. Breathing heavily with her cheek resting on the raven ponytail, her chest pressed against his warm skin, she felt the most horrible she ever had. For a moment she thought he wouldn't feel her, wouldn't know she was there trying to save him, but then she felt a tug on the silken strands of his hair when he turned to look at her over his shoulder._

_When she raised her head, she was met with a pair of warm red eyes that were just so sad her heart wrenched and she knew_, _she just _knew_—_

**~x~**

Konan's eyes finally adjusted to the shadows as she was still trying to register just what the hell she saw. Touching delicate fingertips to her temple, she turned around to face Itachi to ask him if he had also seen the same, the door clacking against its partner.

His back was still turned to her, thankfully wearing a shirt and fully clothed, when he slammed a palm on the wood frames where the panels met. A wave of energy rippled across the walls, something that also resonated throughout her as the surge ravaged through the paper and floors she had infused with her chakra. It felt like fire in her veins as their energies reacted, writing spidering out from underneath his hand to create a glowing web through the walls, the ceiling, every surface of the room, feeling it as if it were on the surface of her skin. Biting down on a scream almost issuing from her lips she battled for control once again over the reign on her body. He did not know of her own webs she laid out, to use at her disposal should emergencies arise, and he must never know.

An inkling of the doubt against his sincerity once again pricked at her conscience, trying to keep her face neutral as he turned to face her at last. His expression was grave but did not take away from the darkly enticing features, deep set eyes gauging her with a grim, shadowed look, mouth set in a hard line lighted by the purplish glow of the scripts. She succeeded, the man before her all the less knowledgeable of their surroundings.

"Please sit."

She gave him a strange appraisal as he gestured to the end of the bed with no other furniture in the sparse room. leaving her unable to voice her concern. He did not seem to know of the vision and she admonished it must be the ill effects of an empty stomach and oversleeping. She stood unmoved, remembering this was where she saw him in the... what was she supposed to call that, illusion? _Is it your genjutsu, Uchiha?_

Her lips pursed at the notion as the walls ebbed and glowed with the scripts, blooming to life in her body, tingling in her limbs and trailing lightly across her skin. When she remained where she was, ignoring his request because it was hard enough to keep a straight face at this point, she heard him give a sigh, then move towards her.

Barefoot, he stepped closer, the acrid scent of tobacco noticeably strong on his person mingling with the heavy linger of alcohol and making her want to wrinkle her nose at him. It was the same odor hanging about him the night in the rain when he took her in, but something was different. Another step and it hit her, making her frown openly up at his dark obsidian eyes and the stoking look he wore. Floral and faint, but it was there. The scent of a woman. She did not know why she felt a deep bout of disdain for him at this revelation. It was negligible. Whether he had a relationship with who, how, why, when, whatever, it did not matter to her.

With his physical appearance and brooding nature there was no surprise he could have anyone he wanted. He could cock his ebony brow from across the room and bedazzle them with a mere nuance of his godforsaken lips and he'd have them begging for a night of no-strings company. It was a notion that gave her something to think about as he never before exhibited signs of being actually interested in the opposite sex, even now, except her olfactory sense could not be more wrong. Did he find out about the Rain shinobi through a woman? A baseborn whore or a Konoha geisha? Or was it from a lady of royal descent, maybe a kunoichi he seduced into submitting to give intel?

However much she denied to herself it was nothing, the more she thought about the idea of him actually laying with a woman the more she wanted to run, images unbidden coming to mind of someone writhing under his weight and issuing confessions between whimpers of pleasure. She needed to stop thinking of this. _He is NOTHING_, she angrily repeated to herself as she glared into those bottomless dark eyes.

Yet when his warm hand was upon her shoulder to lead her towards the bed, she felt the impulse to slap him away with every ounce of strength she had. The mere thought of her petulant childishness horrified her. Was she now so petty as to even dare think to do this to him? She didn't like how the turmoil in her head was reacting, and she felt lightheaded. It seemed she always did whenever he was in close proximity to her for some reason.

"What are you doing?" she hissed, narrowing her eyes at him and rigidly shoving off his hand. It seemed a headache was forming, a dull throb at her temples.

For a moment he looked lost, those brilliantly sharp eyes pondering her question (_demand, because that is strictly going to be their relationship if she wanted things to be as uncomplicated as possible...__)_ He seemed to be more agitated than usual, not the Itachi who was so cool and cold and emotionless. There was something different about him this morning, an instability to his normalcy where breaks and splinters spilled through the aloof man and revealed bits and pieces of what was going on inside him. His eyes held more intensity, more wonder that caught her breath because the emotion lent kindness to his face, more softness, lips betraying more of what he was feeling, pulling inward a fraction at one side in troubled thought. Her question posed him something to fill his mind, a gear rusting and screeching halt what he had planned.

If he was the one who killed off her people, she swore under her breath she would hold nothing back. The energy leaking off the writing seeped into the walls was warm where it breached her papers, the usual sharp chill gone and infusing her with a heat uncoiling within. The uncomfortable thrum it sent through her was making her irritable.

"I'll show you. I want you to believe me." his tone too soft, too careful for the deepness of his powerfully low timbre. He could sound dangerous with that tongue, he could intone a threat and draw terror, emotionally destabilize someone with the right choice of words and rip apart their ideals so easily... yet he wouldn't go there. There was a madly beseeching undercurrent in his words, warm, consoling, apologetic.

"You'll show me what exactly, Itachi-san?" she hated the way he answered to leave more questions, She wanted to _know_ what happened to her shinobi. "How would you do it? How would I be sure I can trust you?"

Those obsidian irises were searing as she questioned his motives openly. He may not have moved, may not have changed, but there was an openness in them that stifled the air about her. If she knew any better, she caught clear anger spilling from those orbs, the only part of him showing any semblance to his feelings. Why she was being hard on him now after he had taken her in and took care of her, she did not know. He had killed his family. What was she to him, anyway, his alternative commander? The throbbing in her temples made it feel like pressure was building inside her head. Suddenly she realized she wanted to rest.

"Trust me." A whisper in the black. Unable to meet his eyes, she watched his lips mouth the words and felt her throat run dry.

For a moment longer she kept staring, a stray thought of how lucky his woman must be flitting like a butterfly through her thoughts before she pressed her own lips together and nodded.

Those long lashes fanned across his fair skin as he closed feminine eyes and sighed. Once again that strange feeling flooded her being, tingling in her limbs, heavy in the air. It felt like moving underwater, slow, protracted, dragging on forever. When she was about to have enough of this and tried to reach out for the papers to ensure she was not caught off guard in a trap, it reintroduced herself to the electrifying gush of his chakra antagonizing her body and setting her nerves afire. _Damn this, you fucking Uchiha._ His eyes opened, scarlet and spinning.

The pulsating in her head magnified, effectively slicing off any attempt to summon the infused papers in the room but left the stinging flush in her being that she staggered on her feet. It felt like last night. She could not stress how much she hated him at this moment for what he was doing. She was not in full capacity, she knew, but if he was thinking she would go down easily, there was nothing else she could prove to him more wrong. Raising her eyes to glimpse his features and distract him into staring at her face as a sheaf of ricepaper behind him folded into a kunai, she braced.

Worry.

Why the hell was he looking worried? She paused, the parchment in his background stopping as well, and flattening itself once more against the wooden pane. In the midst of the dull ache in her head, both hands rose and she ran them through her face. The brief respite in the darkness of her palms hid her away from the sharingan and offered a relieving, painless lull.

"What have you done to me?" she asked, cold gray meeting brilliant scarlet, trying through the returning aching ebb to stare at him face to face.

"I haven't done anything," the disquiet clear in those ebony brows slightly drawing together, a distinct frown forming. Meeting his blood limit proved vitally painful and she dropped her gaze to his collar, his Adam's apple moving up and down as he swallowed and asked, "What's wrong?"

_What's... wrong?_ If she could laugh derisively in his face, she would. Plain etiquette stopped her.

"You're asking me what's wrong?" she seethed, finding it hard to feel mad about his lips pressed into pretty dejection. She dared look back up and was met with the familiar pressure of the headache. Being around him wasn't good to her health and should probably take it as a warning. People with cursed blood were thrown out of the settlements back in Rain, to live as outcasts. She was a few feet, a few steps away from one, her god back at home bending over to another. How vile. "Why are you even asking me that—"

A flash of pain and she couldn't continue, a firm hand quick at her elbow, the smell of smoke and musk suddenly invading her senses. A rush of spiking adrenaline numbed her scalp down to her neck, tightening across her chest. He was so close yet so far, their proximity allowing her a glimpse at a red, almost-purplish mark peeking beneath his collar branded on warm skin. She would not have caught it if she had not been this close, if she had not been avoiding his eyes, holding her head in one hand and the other on his chest. One scant move and she could touch the mark his woman left.

She had no business probing into what his personal life was, her mind betraying her as she tried to fiercely pull her arm away from his grip.

Now-midnight eyes met hers, stern and his jaw visibly tightening. No pain, no suffering this time, her god nowhere to save her from feeling helpless in this Uchiha's presence. Nagato was nowhere, her safety blanket gone. Yet Itachi had stopped what he was about to summon or show or do to her. _Damn you._ He confused her to no end, on where his loyalties lay, what he was planning, what he had in mind, what went on as his life unfolded, why he was doing this in the first place.

Konan did not pry. Her personality forbade it because it was rude in the most simplistic sense, as well as her not caring in the least. Yet someone as dangerous as the man before her was so close to home base he could execute her should he wish, and here she was, letting him breach into her even more. _You are a fucking _boy _still compared to me, you couldn't be, will never, never ever..._

"What do you _want_?" she finally asked, giving up, still wanting to relent and plead but her bruised pride waiting to snap at him. His fingers were firm but gentle as he stepped her back, her calves brushing up against the edge of the mattress.

"You need to sit down," he said grimly.

To her he was always too serious, noting the careful way he always was around her, very formal and perfect. When others were around he was excruciatingly familiar, remembering earlier with Deidara and the Uchiha's insistence in keeping on holding her hand. And then again when there was only the two of them and he could push boundaries to the extreme, he turned polite and stiff, disinterested and detached. It felt as if he were putting up a front, something she saw as a slight.

Allowing him to keep his hand on her as she was slowly lowered to the bed, her icy blue stare met by his smoldering obsidian one, clear distress on dark features. Without the sharingan, she was free to look upon him as she wished. He wasn't hiding as much as he used to, leaving her pondering how long this would last. He was playing the part of caregiver once more, forcing her to consciously straighten her back, sitting straight-laced with hands folded rigidly in her lap. He was warm. It was all she noticed as she held his look unblinkingly, his palm on her knee as he knelt before his second in command. Too close, causing her to be too accustomed to him being this...

His look drifted down to her lips and she knew she had made a mistake, the unease taking the form of dimpling in her chin most likely giving away her thoughts. Did he not know what he was doing? Was he not aware of how he could affect the people around him? His reaction to her discomfort was unreadable. Maybe he had grown up in this manner and was by now completely oblivious to the attraction he drew, being so used to seeing it everywhere. She would know herself, being in a similar predicament for more years than him.

In spite of it, she was human, different from the angel she pretended to be. She knew that. Whether she made him believe she was as careless as he or he was purposefully goading her, it mattered not. He was unconsciously sabotaging her objectivity to situations and people, not one bit of the confusing emotions he incited appealing much to her. It was all wrong. _He_ was wrong. Her boys, they were bright as the sun and blazing, blinding in their glory. Yahiko was wide open and sunny, all easy smiles and pep talks. Nagato was simply scintillating with the uncommon red hair and despite being the quiet one among them three, when he fought, everything about him did not hold back and you would not be mistaken. They were what they appeared to be.

This man, this cursed _Uchiha_, was dark. Including his insolent younger brother and Tobi, she deduced their whole clan must have been as unfathomably uncertain as he. He was silent, cloaked in mystery and dripping in gloom and sinister destruction. She, Nagato, and Yahiko, they all eventually grew into sombre adults but deep down inside, they all were not so cruelly vacant. Their core was built upon a sort of happiness, no matter how warped it was, they were happy and yearned for something better. This Itachi, he was so different. Nothing she could say would describe him enough, and that in itself made her mislike even more the strangeness of her shallow attraction to him.

If he thought only he could play at this debasing game, she rared to beat him at it. Her inner raw emotions yearned to push his buttons, whack at it until he broke. She would not be left on the losing end by her subordinates, the only one feeling lost. Seduction was, after all, a kunoichi's forte. If they wanted her to fall, she was going to take at least him with her. Damn Nagato's reaction. She did love the redhead with a stable fierceness she and Yahiko never had, however in his abrupt dismissal of her in this godless village, she could only take so much and had to compensate. If it meant being horrible to the rest of the members, so be it.

_And what should happen if you're honestly not aware of what you're doing to me?_ she deliberated. He was weary, no night's sleep obvious on his drawn face.

"Is it my eyes?" he asked softly, voice mellifluous in the dim room, the light from the hallway glowing through the ricepaper panes behind him.

Konan knew he was referring to his bloodline limit but she could not help but search those abysmal dark pools, awfully beautiful for a man yet not taking away from his masculinity. The way he treated her was unnerving. Upon assisting her naked, knocked-out self without taking advantage, he had driven the point home that he did not find her interesting enough, which left her not knowing if he was going to let her suffer making the first move, taunting her patience.

Clothes smelling of his vices, his skin, the hint of sex, hazy but distinct, reached her. Itachi was assuredly much of a gentleman, unresponsive when unprovoked. This Uchiha was as deadly as Tobi. The unknown was what made him so, because she knew too little. As far as what the orange-masked man had divulged to her and Pain, there was nothing suggesting of Itachi's involvement in the Moon Eye plan. A wild card in the game of the world's peace, if there ever was one. She could use this time in Leaf to try and know, pry whether the weasel was friend or foe.

He had this reputation for being as cold as December air and had as much care for anything or anyone as angels would for mortals. Then again, here he was too, portraying a difference to his reputation. Emotional, warm, touching too much... caring too much. All the signs waved red flags of a trick by one or another, suckering her into trying to play into their hands.

Would she dare to try? Feed these green boys their own brand of amusement?

"I don't know," she answered truthfully. She only knew something was wrong and it was triggered when he was around. It still remained she needed to attend to business. A hundred and six lives rested on her conscience. "But if you can't show me, tell me then. I must have your reason for... going through all of this trouble." _I want no more of your eyes._

He seemed to mull that one over, sighing deeply as the shadows of the writing on the walls moved on his ruminating features, reflecting in the shine of black silk hair falling messily all over equally black brows and lashes, lighting the angle of his nose, tiny specks of purple glow alive in midnight eyes. So close to see the creases in his lips when he parted them, and when he hesitated to talk, a flash of red tongue before he sighed, blinking lazily.

The urge to kiss him was strong and out of place. The urge to know what happened wasn't, and she leaned away slightly from the Uchiha to allow their mingling personal space to breathe, feeling despondent in following her rationality. Finally, his mellow voice gave her what she was seeking.

"It's Zetsu."

**ooo000ooo**

He had informed Konan there would be a price they needed to pay to take back the bodies and she had shrugged. She hid anger well enough. It had been the last straw, apparently, as exactly a moment later he found out when another of her stinging slaps landed on his cheek back in her room with her screaming incoherent words in his face. He suspected it was a native language in Rain but he wasn't about to bother finding out, Konan snapping at her breaking point, resulting in him grappling with her smaller form to stop her lashing out.

A few minutes later ended with her beneath him on the tatami floor and breathing heavily in his face, cheeks flushed and silvery blue eyes ringed red with unshed emotion, her babbling turning into lucid words of pain. He felt the same, thankful for the seal he setup that prevented sound breaches, her screaming going unheard in the vicinity of the room.

"Paying for retrieving their bodies is a hideous concept," she finally muttered, looking up at him through dark navy lashes, lips curled in a frown. It seized him how she looked so much better without make up. She kept fighting her real self spilling all around her false identity, holding it at bay as much as she could, delaying the inevitable as each slip exposed more of her. Now she chose this moment to break altogether, splitting everything apart and opening herself up to him in that refreshing rush of _human_. Any justifications behind her doing so were understandable. "Please let me go, Uchiha-san."

There had been no other easy way to prevent her from hurting him without hurting her as well than getting out of the way of her legs, and he had body slammed her into the floor, twisting his hips between her knees, pressing his weight into wrists so frail she could have passed off as royalty and he feared breaking them. She'd grown aware of their suggestive position, thighs tightening at his waist and unable to meet him searching her. His clothes hung loose on her but impelled enough in him, the hem of his shirt rising to expose a slice of her abdomen. He yielded, pulling away as if burned. Whatever Kisame or Deidara cooked up, he was not going to touch her.

Looking away, he could still see her at the edge of his vision sitting up.

"They're merchants," he clarified, still not wanting to meet those somber ashen irises. "There is a private stash here that would account for the whole payment."

Subtle fingertips suddenly came to touch the side of his face, pulling him to face her with a frown.

"It's not the price I care about. It's the dignity," her hand as soft as it was warm. "I did not ask them to take my fallen."

"If they weren't there, Zetsu would have eaten their bodies." Silence met his statement. He needed her to understand not everything was bound by morality or the goodness, or even the words of a deity. He could afford the asking fee and was willing to pay in her stead, so there should be no problem about it. His current leader still seemed at a loss at the right decision, but it was a decision needing to be called. In a resigned sigh, she nodded, a pink tinge slow in fading from her face. "We need to go."

**ooo000ooo**

Inside one of the buildings in the abandoned city lay the location they sought, the Uchiha leading the way Konan guessed he knew so long ago but imagined he might have forgotten completely. The area looked no different from the slums of rain, a downtrodden territory of crumbling buildings reaching high for the clouds they would never dream of touching. It was like eons had passed without a soul bothering to revive the dead district located far into lands belonging to the Uchiha and lying an extensive distance beyond the village lines.

_A weapons cache_, she remembered Itachi call the place.

As they entered through a cavernous hole through one of the bigger entrances in the structures, the dirt-eaten concrete gave way to a clean landing, wide double doors screeching a painful din as rusty metal hinges opened. A labyrinth lay before them and her heart hammered in her chest, painful and clear. Now was the time to make a move. No witnesses.

When the man beside her made his first step toward the pitch darkness, she reached out for his hand.

* * *

_Grip_


	7. Conscience Burning

Horry shet, this was rushed. AGAIN. I know, I know. My bad. But I'm excited, lol. Be editing when I get the time.

Hopefully here the story begins to move the way I like it too. Konan's getting more confused, and so might you, but the next chapter explains the presence of the new character introduced here.

Thanks for the reviews guys, xkaiistarx, Santokae, and Stephanie. It's petered out, but this pairing isn't exactly alive in canon. :D I love you guys, haha.

* * *

**Scorpio: The Blood Saga of the Dead War  
**Part VII: Conscience Burning

"_You don't let me turn away even as I try,_"_  
_

* * *

She was silent as she stood before the wide enclave, a tiled room spanning a few hundred meters into the swallowing black. The old woman and Itachi were talking behind her about debts and family honor and certain issues, but she paid no heed, instead experiencing the immense crushing weight of guilt on her heart as the bodies lay in perfectly formed rows, wrapped in white blankets heavily outlining their forms. One hundred and six forms lying inert on the cold porcelain, one hundred and six heavy cotton swathes throwing hair raising shadows, one hundred and six dead. She felt weak. Useless. So goddamn _useless_.

Kneeling beside the nearest one, she reached out and pulled down on the cloth, tugging until the face was exposed, feeling the resistance of rigor mortis fighting her. It was not unlike any of the ones of Pain's bodies when brought to the tower for her inspection before he inhabited them.

Her effort paid in full when the head lolled out onto the chipped tile floor, brackish gray and quite visibly sucked out of life. The eyes were sunken, blonde hair no longer with luster as its sandy texture beneath her fingers made her lips tighten. Its color had lost its sheen, turning into an ashen shadow of its former color, the corpse's skin pale but still full, yet with the papery feel and dry tautness raising alarms. She knew this effect all too well, negating any need for her to examine the rest of the body. This was unmistakably a chakra drain.

Looking over her shoulder, Itachi was still talking with the Elder Cat in hushed tones, some of her mewlings skittering by her feet. He noticed her, however, and politely ended the conversation with the grandmother, bowing in respect before walking over to his current leader. By the entrance to this area in the building, the elderly woman smiled at her but there remained turmoil in those aged features, not ignorant of what was happening.

Konan felt accused. She did not care if their organization was condoned or in contempt, because either way they were doing this for the greater good of all shinobi.

His velvet voice soothed her as he knelt beside her, a silken rumble in his chest, belaying how composed he was about all this and deep in the recesses of her mind she found it unacceptable she be the only one enraged over what happened.

"Konan-sama. What is it?"

With as much ease as she had earlier in inciting contact with the stoic Uchiha by taking his hand in hers, she rested the softness of her palm against his cheek, finding it disturbing how she was liking this constant physical connection with the boy prodigy. Masking what she was feeling, she enabled a frigid smile to match the coldness she felt from her lip piercing.

"I want Zetsu dead."

**ooo000ooo**

The home was empty.

"Where did Deidara-san go?" she asked upon entering the kitchen, noticing the lacking presence of the bomber whose coat she still wore. She took it off, gingerly sliding out her arms and hanging it at the back of a chair before turning to her host to gauge what should happen next.

In her pocket was a thick scroll, bought by the Uchiha from the Elder Cat as she looked on red-faced while he slid over a ream of ryou to the old woman. It felt heavy, and she knew in part it was only her imagination, as it contained all one hundred and six bodies she would take back once she returned to Rain. She would consider this a gift of one of the members of the organization, a homage paid to her and Pain's home village, rather than a debt. Even for Akatsuki, money had admittedly been scarce. Her pride once again reared and she'd quickly claimed what her companion had done was to be treated as a donation. He had remained quiet.

He walked in after her, lifting the stainless steel cover on the table to reveal an empty plate.

"He went out," he answered tonelessly, looking at her before surveying the pile of dishes in the sink. "Have you eaten yet?"

_Um..._

Konan followed him with her eyes as he added Deidara's mess on top of the heap and turned the faucet on with a squeak. His back now turned to her, she pulled out a chair and sat down, wondering what to answer him. She had the inkling he would once again, as she had put it before, come to her rescue. Quite obviously she didn't eat, the lone onigiri sitting like a rock in her stomach. Encountering all the remains of her villagers, it all but contributed to her appetite, but she knew she needed to regain her strength. The logical reason was to accept he would never leave her alone about anything as long as she stayed under his roof. The last time she turned down an offer from him, she faced the insurmountable torrents of rain in the dead of night.

"No. I haven't."

The sound of gushing water did not stop but Itachi did, turning to look at her slightly over his shoulder. She stared back for a moment, as quiet as him. Once again she found herself not knowing why she could not find exact answers to whatever he asked her, drummed silent by his questions.

"Forgive me. I have to finish these first before I can prepare anything," his words confirming her suspicions of what he was planing and burning the heat of a thousand suns on her face.

Once again in his presence, she was speechless. How should she respond to what he just told her? They were not close. They did not banter, nor did they exchange friendly conversation. Itachi was a mere acquaintance at most. Had it been Yahiko or Nagato who'd said that, and had she been around twenty years younger, she could have retorted with whatever came to mind.

This time, she was facing Konoha's most sought after genocide suspect who was her subordinate. No way in seven hells would she be able to tell him to, _Fuck off and get on with it._ By now he had long turned back to the chore at hand, the smell of soap pervading the thin air as a gale of wind blew at the window in front of him. She cleared her throat lightly, puling her knees up to her chest and fidgeting with the leg of her pants. She would have felt better if he decided to ordered her around rather than treat her as a porcelain doll.

Konan could not shake the strange feeling as she watched the Uchiha. All the time she knew him, she'd imagined he was a spoiled kid. For almost two decades, she led herself to believe he'd never lifted a finger for himself, and he must've run away from head of clan responsibilities, that his extremely powerful potential allowed him to massacre them for his personal reasons before being delivered to Akatsuki by Tobi. She'd imagined the next in line would have been treated like a prince, paraded around like some trophy and would much rather be forced onto the training field than be left to help at home. And very, very much so, she expected him not to be comfortable with doing what he was doing now.

Here she was, born of no status at all in the backwaters of Rain, served by the could-have-been Hokage. An ironic clash of fate. He was now hunted by his village and she... (_her and Nagato and Yahiko..._) they had been able to stage a revolution to overthrow the political government of their village. And he was washing dirty dishes. Her conscience got the better of her.

"Do you want me to help?"

He had responded by pausing, a plate and his hands halfway in the stream of icy water in contemplation. Finally he answered, his visage a dark silhouette against the bright backdrop of the kitchen window in front of him, a subtle change just enough to pick up on the difference in his countenance when he spoke yet personal enough for her not to understand it by its vagueness.

"It's been a long time since I've done this," he conveyed in his deep timbre. "I want to do this."

In what followed, she felt strangely contented, her guilt partly eased by the fact he did not seem bothered by her not offering to assist him at all. For the next hour they remained as is, with her looking on as he moved about the kitchen. He'd swept the table clean of the unsorted vegetables, pulled out a bamboo slab from one of the cabinets, and stood there chopping as methodically and silently as he did his kills. Never once did he lift his gaze from his work, sharp knife in his hands as accurate as a kunai. He had taken his time and she found no reason to hurry him—she wasn't hungry.

She had seen the way swords and blades flashed between his hands, the quickness of his movements, the almost blinding speed as he trained back at the homebase in Rain when he had been the newest member of the organization. This afternoon, he appeared to be taking his time.

He'd gone about busying himself preparing miso, and washing rice as if nothing was particularly wrong in the world. To Konan, watching him work transported her back to a time when she had just turned twelve and she watched as Jiraiya bustled about their cabin to prepare dinner for her birthday. It had been strange seeing someone she knew only professionally be so at home. She had to remind herself Itachi was her host and keep her tongue in check to avoid asking him why he couldn't nab some random woman from the civilians to help out with what he was doing.

To her chagrin, she had thought he would have no idea what to do in regard to chores, that she—in her lack of much experience in doing household work—might even know more than him. With what had been happening in the kitchen for the last half hour, she'd been greatly mistaken and was proven wrong. It appeared he had been the one who had prepared what Deidara had been stuffing his face with that morning, and was giving her the first full meal she had in days.

They'd eaten in a lapsing silence, and when Konan tried to sneak a glance, encountered dark gray eyes happening to also glance back the exact moment she did, chopsticks freezing in her mouth. A few seconds into acting like a lovestruck teenager, she'd realized the peculiar curve on his lips was actually a small smile.

"Would you want to join me later?" he softly asked, sipping from a teacup without taking coal eyes off her.

"Later?" she wondered openly, unable to look away.

"I'm going to clean up the lower landing. I'll need help, if you are able." He looked thoughtful for a moment, and it never failed to surprise her how many facets there was to Uchiha Itachi. His one dimensionality was broken forever, a million shards reflecting a different perspective to his persona. After a while he added with the strange tenderness in his expression, "Unless you want to rest, I'll understand."

**ooo000ooo**

The night felt young and fresh, the rain reducing its horrible gales to a relentless patter, paper walls thrown open to the porch to let in the balmy evening air and circulate throughout the house. Her host had brought out a table onto the wooden platform, beneath the awning eaves of the wide roof, where they sat and ate a meal to the tune of falling drops, and she was now sitting sipping tea as they both waited for the rest of the members to come home. The night air cooled her sweat soaked skin and eased tired muscles, the tea warming, the cushion she sat on comfortable. It felt nice. She didn't like how it felt nice. Also, this was not "home".

They've been working the rest of the afternoon after he washed their dishes. It wasn't heavy work, or at least it hadn't been as exhaustive as she'd imagined. He only wanted the whole landing torn down.

Paper walls were unhinged and slid out, stacked at a corner, opening out the whole first floor into one large space apart from the kitchen and the stairway. Tatami mats were beating into choking dust out at the wooden porch, folded up and set aside. The floorboards were polished to the high sheen she'd come to appreciate in the household. But what Konan gleefully found out a few minutes into helping out the Uchiha was she could use handling the materials as an excuse to infuse her chakra into them. In a way she would have full control of situations when the time arose, making it harder for ambushes. And especially when she needed some sort of backup, grass mats and paper was abundant in the abode.

However what caught her attention was how it appeared something was occupying the thoughts of the coldest, most detached member of Akatsuki. It weighed on her mind how she must have stepped into his life past some boundary he'd set.

Her hands clasped around the rough clay mug, hot tea sweeping across her tongue, realizing she managed to enter into Itachi's world—and he had allowed her to do so. It was an entertaining notion, but as always she tried to dismiss it, closing her eyes and feeling the refreshing breeze against her face. What was more interesting at the moment to her, aside from his apparent ease in taking on domestic responsibilities, was how he never expected her to be up to the work and thus carried through most of it. It had made her feel extremely guilty, the same effect as it had all those years ago back in the small cabin in the middle of nowhere in Rain.

The most disconcerting of all, to Akatsuki's second in command at least, was that the strange visions had returned. It wasn't as confusing as the first one, albeit just as disturbing and had left her fighting emotion to not ostentatiously splash over her face when it appeared.

Sneaking another glance to the side, she saw Itachi in quiet contemplation, legs dangling over the edge of the wooden platform as they awaited the return of the others, staring out into the same dark garden of the compound.

The vision assaulted her at the least opportune moment. She had been atop a three legged wooden stool, arms reaching up high above to where the paper wall met the sliding notch in the wood, stuck right about a few inches before it could be fully taken out. He had asked her to check it out, the last of its kind as the whole first floor was transformed into a wide expanse around them, every wooden frame except it removed. All that remained were those acting as walls to the veranda. He'd taken to continuing folding the grass mats she had been fixing and was a few feet away, leaving her toggling and trying to see what was causing the sliding wall to halt.

When her gaze had lingered down to the Uchiha, she'd noticed he had been staring at her for a while, nothing exactly off about his expression as he appeared curiously watching her. It was where suddenly a scene flashed before her, an explicit image of her body between his and the grass mats she'd carefully stacked, his weight on her chest and her hips, feeling his lips on her pulse, his hands gripping her waist and keeping her down, her thighs tightening around him.

A split second later she almost fell, a foot slipping off the varnished surface of the chair and hands shooting out to snatch at the groove in the ceiling, fingers fastening around the cleft to bear her weight, the stool tilted and tipping. In a flash Itachi was before her, an arm around her waist, a hand supporting behind a knee. His dark gray eyes had looked up at her, and she'd felt all the more angry with finding herself in another situation with him between her legs. He had felt warm, every inch so solidly there as in the vision, and she randomly wondered why he was pretending to be her bloody knight in shining armor for the uncountable time.

The atmosphere had been fraught with unspoken awkwardness, looking down into those steady, bottomless black eyes which had been gravid and searching hers. One of her legs was still stretched out and trying to keep the stool steady at an angle. She could feel his heart beating against her exposed abdomen pressed into the rough spun cotton shirt, feel the sweat-soaked tendrils of his hair plastered across her skin, feel heat entering her face. He'd spoken, gravel in his tone as to her surprise, he seemed as distracted as her by what was happening between them.

"_Let go._"

She had heeded his order, releasing her fingers from the groove in the ceiling, her full weight caught between the cradle of his hips and his tightening arms, the chair tumbling and cracking against the hardwood floor, her arms locking tightly around his neck. The silence they shared had been charged with uncertainty, their faces only inches apart she could feel his breath against her cheeks, their damp hair lightly fluttering with every exhale. For a crazy moment she'd imagined he would lay her down on the pile of mats on the floor, but knew it was extremely unlikely.

Their position was as damning as possible in every way imaginable should anyone bothered to have walked in at that moment. She knew it. _He_ knew it as much as she did. But they both were unable to move in the midday humid heat with the rain pattering outside, his obsidian gaze shifting from one translucent blue gray iris to the other, wide with doubt at how to move forward and his filled with what she feared was raging self control. After what felt like an eternity, he'd closed his goddamn eyes and clumsily set her down, as plagued as she had been feeling. They'd separated, the wooden frame finally giving way after hammering a loose nail back and setting it free to slide out.

In the present, she shivered both from the cold wind and the memory. The man in question had not seemed to have any idea what caused her to fall. It was tempting to confront him about it, outright ask if he was behind the visions, but thought to keep it to herself. Promising herself to let this one go and wait for a last straw before she asked him, she downed the last of her tea.

"Is something bothering you?"

Her teacup was set down on the small table between them, meeting his inquiring gaze. So he'd noticed, after all. Seems there was no end to how much he knew. It probably was a good thing he chose to approach her about what bothered him, quite unlike herself.

"Nothing," she responded, lifting ice blue eyes to his midnight ones. "What makes you think I'm bothered?"

A hint of a one-sided smile. Even with the reckless way he sat down, a knee now raised up to where he rested his arm, another propped behind him to support his weight as he turned to her, he looked every inch the lost prince. His hair had been grown so long the tips of the silk ponytail brushed the floor, his mug still half-filled with rising mist beside him reflected on the floor. He knew something was going on with her. The possibility struck her he might have also been seeing the visions.

For a long time he did not talk, merely gave her that strange, unreadable look. It wasn't unpleasant in the least, but it made her uncomfortable. Right before she was about to ask him to stop staring, he spoke._  
_

"Do you know about Madara?" his voice so soft she almost didn't catch it.

The question could have shattered her world the moment he chose to ask it. Her eyes widened, lips parting but no words coming out. She was so damned sure this Uchiha was not involved in the Moon Eye plan. Tobi had said it himself, and confirmed it time and again when she repeatedly asked him about who knew and didn't. Konan felt the hairs on her arms rise. Even Nagato had mentioned they should include him in their plans, however Tobi once again shot that suggestion down. This was dangerous information to know. Itachi has always been someone who was no dimwit about secrets, but she thought their plan for world peace was well under wraps.

"Why—"

The entrance slammed open, interrupting and what followed and drowning out what she was supposed to say.

"KONAN-CHAN!"

She choked silently, automatically turning to see who it was and managing to steel her resolve into keep her face as blank as possible. Tobi, the fucking devil himself with his orange swirl mask and screechy childish personality, was standing in the doorway with arms raised up high and exaggeratedly dancing around in some sort of twisted glee. Behind him Deidara and Kisame trudged in, all of them wet from the downpour.

"Konan-chan is heeeere~!"

Her face darkened, wanting to bury and suffocate the said person with her papers. When she turned back to Itachi, he was still looking at her with his half-smile. This time though, his expression was clear through those cursed eyes of his, telling her to shut up. He didn't want anyone to know what they were talking about. In one movement he picked up his teacup and took a small sip before turning as well to his other guests, gesturing to the table inside with the covered bowls.

She swallowed lightly. Whatever he had been wanting to discuss had to be postponed. She watched as he told them they had been waiting since afternoon, watched him interact with the rest in his soft spoken, docile manner.

First was what happened to the Rain shinobi. Then there was this about Itachi knowing something about Madara. Since they were both Uchiha, it could have also been by chance, just some simple coincidence. But it was too much of a stretch. The boy genius had been the one who approached her and informed her about Amegakure, then this night he also had been the first to open the topic about the founder of his clan. He knew something dangerous.

Konan settled for the frozen mask she was all too familiar with, turning her attention to the rest with the quietness she was renowned for. Kisame had an unusually large grin as he stepped inside, the bomber looking even more sulky than ever and without his official coat—which she had left hanging on the back of a kitchen chair.

"We got ourselves some company," announced the shark man in his raspy voice, fixing beady eyes onto his partner beside her. "Not that you need it."

From the edge of her vision she could see Tobi make an overstated gasp at the statement, turning his head from her to the other Uchiha. Thankfully, Deidara shoved him out of the way without so much ado, ("Quit it, un!") leaving out the need for her to refute whatever was implied.

At the doorway opened wide, she noticed someone else standing there. It did not take long before her curiosity was sated as a tall, lithe girl appeared out of the shadows, all platinum blonde hair swept up in a clean ponytail and a sheaf of bangs hanging low on one side of her face. She was young, that she could tell as soon as the warm light of the house fell on her. Too young in fact, she realized, as the girl shook out the rain from her hair and her clothes, giggling with an infectious smile at the big towering form of Kisame, cyan eyes bright and happy. There was the uncanny similarity to Deidara, which struck her as the reason she and Itachi's partner were teasing the bomber.

_Sickening_. She didn't know why she disliked her immediately. She wasn't for judging people without any previous outside influence. This girl, she had never seen before, but something about her personality, her naivete, the way she waltzed in with a big paperbag full of groceries, it planted a deep annoyance with Akatsuki's second in command. Especially when she noticed how the young girl's gaze (_likely in her late teens or early twenties because that body definitely would not belong to some snobby _child_, kami-sama__..._) settled on Uchiha Itachi. She did not miss the blush staining the girl's peaches and cream complexion, how she lowered her head slightly and gazed at him through those long gold lashes.

Deidara's voice could be heard resonating from the kitchen where he had stalked off to. "She doesn't look like me, yeah!? Tobi, un, you shut up!"

Whoever this tramp was, Konan was left pondering how to handle the situation since she was, technically, under the house of the weasel. Under normal circumstances anyone not within Akatsuki was not allowed to mingle with them, however she wasn't in the position to decide on the girl's fate in this special situation. Her host had the responsibility on who to keep here or who to turn away. _Just like me_, she thought grimly.

"Hi," the girl's voice light and airy. It was definitely directed at Itachi.

"Found her at the liquor store," continued Kisame as the two of them approached the main table, plopping down on one of the _zabuton_ littered beside the table and motioning the blonde to follow his lead. "She was game for a round or sake, so we brought her anyway."

There was a knowing look exchanged between the partners, the dark haired man giving her a momentary sidelong glance before returning his gaze to the blonde girl, as Deidara appeared again bearing the rice cooker. His expression was as neutrally as light as the girl's voice, a hint of a dimple at his left cheek, normally sharp eyes softening. At the edge of his lips was a telltale smirk she had definitely never seen before. She felt her temper rising, once more interrupted by the shark man.

"Works at the flower shop. Only child. Safe."

"Hn." The genuine smile growing across Itachi's captivating lips sent their way was so grandiose for his personality it knotted revulsion in the pit of her stomach. The girl blushed heavily, as unresistant to the young man's dark charms as anyone, and inciting a deep disdain in Konan.

"Please sit," he asked in the same tone he had used when it was her who had arrived at his doorstep, and she was sure her lightheadedness was from the adrenaline spilling like jealousy through her veins, clenching hard the teacup between her hands. As soon as the girl had set down the brown paperbag, she smiled prettily at her host, at which the Uchiha's following words almost took the breaths away of everyone present. "Welcome to my house, Yamanaka-san."

Confusion among all of them, except the Uchiha. _He knows her?_ There was something happening here, because there was shock in the teen's expression, body rigid where she sat, as if she had not expected him knowing her name.

"Thank you for the drinks," the damned weasel continued, guarded yet soft, but pushing on nonetheless. "I apologize for the meager fare, but it's what we have at the moment. However, congratulations on passing the chunnin exam. I'm quite sure Inoichi-san is proud."

In an instant samehada was reared up behind the blonde, Kisame's gigantic figure blocking the way to the entrance, Deidara's cerulean eyes as wide as the girl's as he almost dropped the pot of rice, caught surprised. A navy brow rose as her own response, feeling a rabid sort of glee at the sudden turn in the events at hand and managing to subtly hide it behind the pouring of more tea into her cup.

She watched the girl, shoulders almost shaking the long gold ponytail behind her, and sipped at the scalding liquid. The pretty face was draining of color, starch white against the richness of her purple dress and the contrasting black of her fishnet shorts. So she was a kuniochi too. _How_ _cute_, Konan sneered inwardly. _How stupid._

"I—"

"Please, don't be afraid," it was Itachi, placating this Yamanaka-san.

Now even the blue shark man looked a bit confused, the most of all her, cold ice gray eyes boring into his profile. _Aren't you going to kill this brat?_

The smile on his lips was still there, as charming as ever. She was a fucking Leaf shinobi. What else was there to think about in this situation? She threw a sharp look at the blonde before returning it to her host, calm and composed where he sat. Just beyond him, her gaze focused to the stacked of wooden panels at the corner, still waiting to be stored. Calculating, if this girl was a chunnin, she could manage to grab hold of the papers and rip them right through her. Deeming the suffocating part too enigmatic, this little kunoichi deserved something a bit more violent. As to whether her ill-placed annoyance had much sense, she never found out. The short lived elation she felt was dashed once more.

"Ino, you can stay," Itachi's velvet tone soothingly carrying across the room. "As long as you don't plan anything against us. I won't allow anything to happen to you. Your father and I were old comrades."

As automatic as it had sprung to action, the giant weapon of the mist nin lowered. Danger passed. Anger resurfaced. She didn't know how much control she had left over what was showing in her face or her actions, but her eyes happened to alight onto the orange swirl, a lone eye in the shadowed socket staring dead at her, his own version of quiet mocking. There was no other reason for her to stay here any longer.

Turning to the rest and apologizing she had to retire for the night, she made her exit toward the stairs and ignored the quizzical glance Itachi gave her. She made sure no one had followed her up to the second landing before running to her room and slamming the pane closed. _Fucking Tobi. Uchiha fucking Itachi._

* * *

_Scream_


	8. Veins of Fire

**AN:** AAAAAHMYGODDDD Kisame is so fun to write. The raw writing of his POV took around 10 minutes and was the easiest of this whole chapter. This whole chapter turned to be all differing POVs, but since Konan is admittedly the main character here, I'm gonna end on her.

In other news... I've updated this story three times in a row. My Gods of Vindication readers are readying my lynching, so I seriously have to stop and finish a chapter for them first, lololol But hey, I enjoyed writing this chappy. Taking a break from the depressingly immersing writing of Konan and Itachi takes a hunk out of me since I'm not normally as half as awesome as one of those two, so the Kisame and Deidara POVs were well deserved and a long time coming.

Yes, this still follows the Tobito teaming with Madara theory, which is why I couldn't write Tobi. Not that I can't, but I'm not funny enough to pull off his childish side. :( In general, the plot of this story is very loose though, because this was slapped together for the sake of me having an ItaKon pairing. But hopefully it would work. Err... anyway, any questions, feel free to ask. :D

To my ever loyal reviewers... xkaiistarx, The man (your FF account is A man of many faces, right? or...?), GalanthaDreams, Little Kunai, and of course any of those silently following, you guys are pure love. Thanks for the support. It's been a tumultuous 8 chapters and we're still running. I hope we all get to the end unscathed. :D

* * *

**Scorpio: The Blood Saga of the Dead War  
**Part VIII: Veins of Fire

"_Winning me back with your haunting cry."__  
_

* * *

The moment their all hail supreme temporary leader turned the corner up the staircase, Tobi managed to drop the rice cooker Deidara was handing him at the moment, the heavy container smacking right on the bomber's naked foot.

"AAAAAA—"

"OMIGODOMIGODOMI—"

"TOBI! YOU FUCKING DIMWIT, UN!"

There was temporary chaos as the two idiots duked it out, Kisame sighing as he reached over and righted the pot lying on its side. Thankfully nothing was spilled, opening the cover to a cloud of warm steam. Perfectly steamed. It always was when Itachi was the one cooking. There seemed to be nothing the Uchiha couldn't do without excellence.

When his eyes landed on his partner, he noticed him talking in low tones with the blonde girl. Well, wasn't this an improvement. Usually this asexual humanoid didn't bother approaching humans and froze to death with an apathetic look anyone who bothered to come near him. This little girl seemed to be at first flustered by her cover being blown. She probably had tried to spy on them, from what his instincts told him, tailing after Akatsuki when the perfect opportunity presented itself. Nothing complicated, just trying to get a sniff at the goings on at their headquarters. Definitely it was not planned, and most likely she grabbed the opening when she saw it. It would even have worked, had Itachi not known who she was and exposed her right then and there in the middle of them all.

Ino, the girl, had been deathly pale the moment their host mentioned her name, especially when he revealed—for some hypersensitive picking-up skills that he knew—her recent graduation. And there was that terribly un-Itachi-like smirk. Secretly it creeped him out too.

Well, not to be hard on his partner, he was still a male and had urges. Compared to his blue skin and shark teeth, the was a much greater ease for the Uchiha to satisfy those urges and so had managed to lure some damsel into his clutches. However, he seemed particularly not talkative about them, but once every often he'd see the stray girl in their living quarters trying to slip towards the door and leave unnoticed. Of course, any good partner would pretend he hadn't seen anything, but oftentimes curiosity got the better of him and he'd swivel around and grin his menacing jaws to scare whoever it is out of their mind. All to get a glimpse of what his partner's type looked like.

He had been always disappointed. There was no pattern in their appearances, all as varied as every second of everyday. There was no telling, and he merely accepted that his partner was not as condescending in physical appearance as the rest of mankind. Or gender, for that matter. He chose to keep that part of imagining from soiling his mind. He had no problem how his partner wanted to get laid, and by whom, but he himself was straight as a bone and didn't find thinking about his partner's more colorful escapades particularly appetizing.

Case in point: Yamanaka Ino. Apparently the information she'd shared with him and Deidara had been accurate. She was the lone child of Leaf's resident flower shop owner, and worked there in her free time. She'd withheld she was a chunnin, and as she had worn no _hiai-ate_, or possessed any other sign she was a kunoichi—but damn, wasn't that what kunoichis were good at, pretending to be someone they're not?—so he'd taken the privilege to ask her to return home with them. One was because she was bubbly and seemed to be nice company, whatever her age might be. Second and most importantly, she looked like the bomber and he was getting increasingly pissed off with every joke they made about their appearances. Who could resist something like that?

Of course they weren't careless, because they could kill her outright anyway. But Itachi wouldn't have wanted that. Maybe a little bit then. But she was still funny. So home they went.

And now it seems all hail supreme cold blooded bastard killing machine Uchiha Itachi was making a pass at the girl.

Kisame sighed. A deep, long sigh as if the world had been on his shoulders and the gloom and destruction befalling the universe was all his fault. In this house all the internal destructive moods were, in a way, really his fault because he'd done something or other to nudge things along, but he didn't feel it warranted the tangled rope tightening around them that their all hail supreme temporary leader was fuming about. Konan had slammed the door, that much he could tell. If it weren't for that one little tidbit he was lucky enough to catch onto, she had been acting completely normal all the time.

Of course, he didn't mean to say anyone else noticed. Itachi was occupied with this Ino girl and Deidara and Tobi were screaming themselves raw. He'd felt the extremely faint vibrations through the wood care of his shark traits, because anyone who could hear anything over the racket the two retards were making would be some grand owner of supersonic hearing. He didn't think Konan would be _that_ affected, but she was a girl and all girls were crazy nutcases deep down inside. What did he know anyway? Slugging down a jug of sake and knowing well it wasn't the right way to drink, he focused on watching his longtime partner. _Oh, you Uchiha traitor. Sometimes I wonder what the hell you think you're doing._

Itachi was a very subtle specimen of the human race if there ever was one. If he liked something, he wouldn't show it, nor would anyone pick up on it. At least, not anyone who didn't know him like he did. These was one of the moments keeping his interest piqued, and the strangeness of this lad was what made being his partner tolerable.

All throughout the times he'd been picking up bedmates in the sharkman's company, he was doing exactly that to the oh young and tender and juicy and might-be-tasty-like-chicken Yamanaka. He was slightly leaning in to the girl, his face as blank as a tombstone, but he was actually _talking_ to her. There was the fact he was paying attention to whatever nonsense was spewing from the tipsy lips of the teenager. Oh, Kisame chided himself, of course Itachi was not too far from his teens either. And as he'd very kindly elucidated earlier when he blasted open the girl was an official Leaf shinobi, he knew her father. Or something of the sort. Maybe it was for that reason he was bothering with little miss Ino, but there was just something about his gut feeling roaring he was luring her in.

Carefully pouring contents of the bottle into a nice small cup, he still had his wits about him. Within the span of the time he left the house and returning, something had happened, _clearly_, between mister weasel and miss paper flower. Whatever it was, he was sure there was a reason behind her acting all huffy as soon as the Leaf chick entered the picture. Sure, he couldn't tell his partner to stop being an ass _and for gods sake piss off the goddamn Akatsuki second in command_ but there was little else he could do because Itachi had always done what he wanted, irregardless of how nicely he appeared to be when brushed off your wonderfully polite suggestion.

By the time they retired for the night, one of the last in his generation of Seven Swordsmen knew he didn't want to know what's happening, and sipped on his teeny cup. The disorder Tobi and Dediara were yammering about had quieted down, and because those two were the only ones noisy in the first place, the only sound in the wide space of the first floor of their dear host's home was their puffing for breath. Which Tobi broke.

"But...! But...! I swear, Deidei-sempai~! Konan-chan was wearing Itachi-san's shirt!"

A fine sake mist sprayed from his lips.

**ooo000ooo**

The whole blasted morning had been one unending string of a freaking headache for Deidara. It had begun with everyone leaving him on duty the last, so he'd had to rush home to rummage around the leftovers and peck at a late breakfast in the kitchen. Thankfully there had been something left behind for him to eat, care of the always thoughtful Uchiha. It had been a good idea to take him up on the offer of staying at his home, no matter how he hated the dude.

What he hadn't counted on had been Konan almost looming like a shadow in the kitchen shortly after he began devouring the rice balls he almost threw a clay bomb at her. Good he still retained enough of his head to not scream. He'd thought she'd went out like the rest of them. It had looked like she was just _that_ worn out and slept in. Oh joy, how nice for her, while the rest of them had to dash through the rain and keep the tarps from blowing off the whole demented village. Yeah. He didn't like the place a bit, no one could blame him. Appeared to him nobody wanted to be here anyway. Except Itachi.

Feh, couldn't blame him either. He came from here after all. But it boggled him because from what he'd heard about what the weasel did, the last thing he'd expected of him was to come right back to where everything went down, what with the killing off of your whole freaking _family_. Tsk, and he'd managed to leave his brother. Kami-sama, at least he should've completed the job. What happened, like he rampaged through the whole little subdivision and killed off every single Uchiha he saw—which included police, his own poppa who's current head of the clan, the elders who probably knew a whole lot of old techniques, the veterans, and a slew of others—then when it came to finish off the very last person who happened to be his little brat of a brother, he ran out of chakra?

"Feh," he snorted, tipping precious holy juice of the gods between his lips to wipe his memory clean. Ignorance was bliss.

Staring at his lookalike over the food while she chattered endlessly, he directed a good big ball of rice into his mouth. At least she knew how to make a good joke. Unlike some idiot he knew who wore stupid orange masks. The fact he was pissed she looked like him aside, she chose to sat down by the Uchiha. Made enough sense since he grudgingly admitted the homicidal douche who had the personality of a moth was redeemed by kami-sama with looks. Nevertheless, the man actually wanted to stay in the place where he made all those gruesome murders and so was probably sitting right exactly in the place where his killed his momma and poppa (_which, unknown to Deidara, he was_). He made up his mind Itachi must have gone totally insane. He just didn't look like it.

He thought the last surprise of the day for him would be seeing Konan, because he'd be damned if he wasn't sure she and the Leader were screwing around, then suddenly seeing her wearing something that was an Uchiha shirt else Tobi was going to be the next Leader of Akatsuki. He was an artist, and he was so sure what was emblazoned on her back was a red and white fan. When he had pointed it out to her in the morning, she shrugged it off. The mistress of Pain. Her. Kami-sama, were people so hard to understand sometimes.

Deidara didn't care in the least, but he was curious anyway, so he cursed his curiosity to hell and back. At any rate he'd also figured it would be the weasel's funeral. That had to work in his favor somehow. Of course, he did not expect five minutes later for the two of them come back to the house, the almighty prick towing around Pain's angel like something out of a horror movie.

The blond remembered in distaste how his throat had painfully refused to cooperate with him. Well, unfortunately for him it wasn't where the string of events ended. He'd gorged on as much as he could and ran out the house before they reemerged. No way did he want to get caught up in something so... Deidara didn't know how to describe it. Pain and Konan had a really weird relationship in the first place. Then here came along an ice cube and from what it looked like to him, there was also something going on.

He had no business prying in where they wanted to stick what into, but at this rate he knew he was inferior to the Uchiha. The sting of how he got recruited in Akatsuki never left, and he was also pretty sure Pain would squash him in a heartbeat. That wasn't even counting what that old hag between those two psychopaths would do to him.

Getting caught up in any misinformation or rumors surrounding them was a fatal mistake, obviously. He wouldn't want to incur the wrath of the Leader by happening to _not_ tell him of what he saw, and he wouldn't want to be forced to spit out a loyalty oath to a weasel or a girl anytime soon to keep quiet about their cheating spree. No. That was the business of someone like Kisame or something like that. Whatever. He didn't want anything to do with any of this.

To add insult to injury when he met up with Kisame they ran into some chick who looked like him in the liquor store. Which was promptly brought home to show off to anyone willing to listen. Nabbing Tobi along had been no help. He badly needed a drink. Thankfully, his clone wasn't some killjoy and proposed to buy them drinks for asking her to have dinner with them.

After his idiotically shitty partner dropped the rice cooker on his foot on account of seeing Itachi's shirt being worn by Konan for the first time, he lost it. Not news to him, and he strove to seriously not give a flying fuck anymore. Their little prank seemed harmless when they were pitching it to their host because they knew he was too "good" in the sort of way a homicidal maniac could be. Now it seemed the tables were turned on them because he wouldn't hazard any way in this world something so horrible would happen as him shacking up their boss's... lady? girlfriend? wife? life partner?

Deidara couldn't care less about his surroundings by the time it rolled around for them to go to bed, and slunk off full and mellow and as happy as could be while drunk on forced ignorance. Damn straight, he couldn't be happier as long as Hidan didn't return from the dead.

**ooo000ooo**

She looked so similar to Deidara it was probably not a coincidence. At some point Itachi had been captain of the original InoShikaCho. Vaguely he remembered a mission Inoichi was sent on to Stone before he handled the team. Not like Itachi would point that out to Yamanaka Ino.

The way she was batting her eyelashes at him was very indicative of how she wanted this drinking session to end. He knew if her father got any wind of what his daughter was thinking, Inoichi would trample all over Sasuke to murder the older Uchiha before his foolish little otouto managed to get his bearings. Unfortunately for that old man, his little princess was extremely good at flirting. It did not faze her the rest of the Akatsuki went howling about Konan wearing his clothes the moment their vice leader was gone, and she had it in her to entertain them for the remainder of their socializing time.

The girl was incredibly outspoken, matching the energies of the three others in the room and letting her take the conversation, leading and able to roll with the jokes no matter how obscene it seemed to get. She'd sat beside him after dinner, face already taking on a rosy blush to her cheeks that suited her. He quietly wondered how to bind her to promising what would happen would not get out until at least his demise. There was a slight disrespect he could sense, should the father find out before he was resting well beneath the earth, in knowing his former ANBU captain had slept with his daughter.

If he'd rely on pure convincing of the mind walker, there was a chance it would work. As much as possible he didn't intend to use any eye techniques as much as possible.

Looking into those bright blue eyes, she laughed, undoubtedly taken by him. It was easy, he knew. A little deviation from his usual manner and people would immediately think they were treated specially or thought of as more important than the rest. He'd hate to deceive someone as young as her, around his brother's age if he wasn't mistaken, however this was going to be the easiest way to take care of things.

He'd brought up the subject of Madara to Konan but did not have the time to sift through her knowledge and determine what exactly she knew about the "founder of the Uchiha". He'd come across the information Tobi presented himself to Pain and his angel as such, yet for a fact he knew the man was a pretender. An extremely dangerous pretender who held in his power the ability to influence what happened to the whole shinobi world, and by extension, the fate of one certain Uchiha Sasuke. Itachi did not sacrifice the last eight years of his life only to be wasted away by a gamble of the usurpers arresting world peace. The death of their whole clan was not done for nothing. This was why he needed to set a talk with Konan about what she knew happening behind the scenes. And to know if she was going to be on his side or not.

Ever since Tobi had become officially part of the organization, he knew something was amiss as hostility began seeping into her aura. They may not have noticed but he could read every single one of them as if they were an open book, mostly with the help of his eyes especially if they were active. Even Pain was not an exclusion to this. He knew more than anyone might have wanted, only he had not acted on anything he knew, pretending to be a very useful and ignorant arm of justice of Akatsuki. Even without his bloodline limit, he was perceptive enough to pick up on the difference in tones of their voices, the way their eyes moved versus what they said, the minutest change in their body language, how they shifted their cloak, in the every blink they made.

Such control was formally taught and honed to the following head of the clan in his family, and to those with great potential. It was a cruel practice but it saved many lives, and it allowed one to see a different scale to others' personalities, and early on Itachi had been brought up in the very art of it when Fugaku discovered it had also been a match to his personality.

It resulted in the only person he was unable to read being Tobi himself.

From what he'd seen throughout their meal, Kisame had been shooting him strange looks, indicative of some turbulence bothering his partner. There was a great deal of perceptiveness he had to dodge with him. What allowed him to feel more easily about the situation was the sharkman did not catch the way he was watching Tobi, and the way the masked man was strangely unconcerned the moment Konan made her exit. He knew validating something through lack of evidence was a poor way of deducing things, however with the orange swirl mask, he knew there was more to him than anyone dared think, and the extremely blank look he gave the substitute leader fell flat of being in character.

Everything kept getting more and more complicated each time something new came up, and the only thing left was for him to remedy things on the go and take everything on his own shoulders. He had accepted his fate long before. He could not possibly turn back to his vows, to his mission, and if it included using Inoichi's daughter, he would do it without a second thought.

As such, when the night drew to an end, the blond bomber running out of energy to snap at Tobi and the masked man running out of energy to apologize and pretend to look like a complete idiot, Kisame growing sleepier with each gulp he downed, him and Ino remained in the dining area. As always the cleaning up was left to him. Their glaring laziness and inability to do simple house work was a fine contrast to them being some of the highest paid heads in the bingo books. He shook his head slowly in fond contemplation of these people he'd matured around, and decided everything could wait until the morning came or he'd managed to get what he needed out of Ino.

It seemed though the mind walker, as the Yamanakas were known, knew how to hold her alcohol and the only sign of her drunkness was the rouge on her cheeks and bright eyes. He stood up, leaning down to her and offering her a hand. The action elicited an unladylike cackle from her.

"Do you always do this to the girls you meet, Itachi?" she breathlessly asked, fixing him with a sardonic look, a golden brow arched at his gesture. He did not mind her referring to him on a first name basis with the too-intimate lack of suffix. She knew who he was, his reputation, yet apparently was as girlish as could be to be drowned by looks and actions. Had he been someone else, he wondered how she must have fared, although he knew she would have put up a fight if her abilities would be anywhere reminiscent of her father's. She came here by taking a chance on opportunity, and so he was going to run on the same stroke of luck and see if he could grab the opportunity she presented.

"I do."

She laughed, the sound like the soft tinkering of crystal glasses, and he allowed a small smile as she took his hand and he pulled her up.

**ooo000ooo**

She didn't know what woke her but she bolted upright feeling as if someone had been watching her.

As if on automatic her hand formed a tiger seal and Konan snapped her fingers at the lamp on the bedside table, the instrument sputtering into being. Her room came to life in the warm light, as empty as it had been when she'd entered. Judging from the dark sky through the curtainless window by the headboard, dawn had not even broken. Everything was as quiet as a graveyard were it not for the constant hush of rain and wind. It was still somewhere in the middle of the night. Her intuition had been rattled and she could not shake the feeling of eyes boring from behind. In a swift movement she turned down the gas and killed the lamp, keeping as quiet as possible.

Then it came. Three raps as if sounded from the front door.

Holding her breath and wondering who in their right mind would be bothering to come to a deserted subdivision of the village where murders had happened, not to mention where Akatsuki stationed their presence, and she knew it had to be someone who didn't care. It brought to mind how unsecured they actually were, and as soundless as a shadow she crept out into the darkened hallway and into the blackness.

There was no light. She could barely see the first few feet in front of her and she had to softly feel around with her soles to inch forward, following the grain of the timbers of the floor until she reached the stairs to quietly make her way down to the first landing. Thankfully the boards were solid and had been properly laid, no groaning or squeaking as her weight transferred from one foot to the next as she moved from step to step. Chakra sluggishly humming in her system, the angel form was discarded from her arsenal and she outstretched both arms as she walked toward the source of the noise to keep herself from running into anything.

This part of the house was relatively more visible, a lone candle sitting atop the uncleared dinner table in the middle of the wide space. It was small, but it was still something. The next series of knocks curled her mouth into a churlish frown, and with her still raised arms reached out to stir the stacks of folded tatami mats and imperceptibly pul out paper panes from the wooden frames still lying by the far wall. Another three quick successive taps and she felt herself tense.

Whoever this was, with certainty she could take them on. Even with this knowledge, she could not help but feel her nerves getting the better of her, her heart kicked with adrenaline thrumming in her chest. With steeled resolve to end this, she grasped the door and threw it open to the crisp sound of falling rain and a fresh blast of cold night air.

"Zetsu."

Lightning flashed behind the humongous eaves of his foliage, followed by the jolting sound of thunder as his flat, yellow eyes were illuminated brightly for a split second staring down at her. The half black half white face spread into a sickening grin, his cloak in massive swatches of cloth around him. He did not seem wet in the least. His presence drove her to the brink of self control, what with the materials hovering in the air just behind her vibrating in response to her emotional state. It was a hidden blessing that sign could not be read easily.

"Konan-sama," came the guttural, almost garbed voice sounding as if it came six feet below the ground, the intonation of his black self. "Your shinobi have arrived."

For an instant his statement confused her. _What shinobi? Those you've tried to eat?_ She kept her mouth shut and merely waited for him to say something else.

Behind her impassive glare, she was baffled. She was quite sure of each of the characters painted into the burial scroll the Uchiha had given her, assured of the black lifeless blood they drew from everyone to use as ink. She'd touched the bodies, memorized the faces before they were sealed away. One hundred and six names matched to one hundred and six visages. The old woman, the Elder Cat, had told her how they group were found overrun by white blobs that appeared human yet were not. With this knowledge and Zetsu's inane staring, her frown deepened.

She needed to pretend she did not know, if she were to get to the bottom of what he was planning. To throw him off his tracks would allow her enough time to learn why he killed her people, why he was doing this. He was that fucking Madara's pet, of this she was convinced. The only remaining problem was the lack of proof, and she needed to find something to nail him. No, she could not pass judgement on this scale of sin. She would let Pain exact it.

"They arrived just now?" she asked flatly, still keeping the hold on her weapons even as her body relaxed before her enemy. "They're late. Very late, as you see."

"Yes," so slow like it was a rasping death rattle. "They were fucking idiots. We had to multiply our bodies to keep watch of the village. What a waste of energy." At this Konan felt her ears burn with rage but kept as still as a rock. His white form continued speaking, not as dreadful sounding as its black counterpart. "We have more eyes on the streets. We have more watchers. We will be invincible."

"_Akatsuki_ will be invincible," she corrected, narrowing ice cold eyes. "How many are they?"

At this Zetsu behaved as if chewing it over, cocking his head one side, then the other half gruesomely split with a nauseatingly sucking sound to bend the other way. He grinned, small pointed teeth like ivory in the mouths of both of its heads.

"Probably one hundred," they said at the same time, a leery echo against the whiplash of the trees and the rain on the roofs.

Pursing her lips, she placed a hand on a hip, haughty of this calculation. He was playing it safe. The grin grew, as if he had been sensing her fishing for something. Changing tactic, she sniffed lightly.

"Exactly one hundred?"

"Maybe."

"I thought you'd be more accurate than that," she replied as uncaringly as possible. "I want an exact count tomorrow morning. You can go."

There was a lull in the way Zetsu stared back down at her, and she wondered whether she needed to attack him because the pieces were clicking together in his nutshell of a brain. She knew he was powerful, but he could only be a henchman. He had a strange purposeless life which could only be sullied and corrupted when in the wrong hands, and she knew he'd long before surrendered his loyalty to someone else before joining their organization. Finally those dull yellow eyes lifted from her to somewhere behind her.

She had sensed nothing, and feeling the hairs at the back of her neck rise, made a slow pivot to look, her control on the grass stalks and the paper fibers trembling with self control. _If you are fucking Madara, I _will_ kill you..._

He stood there by the dirty table where the lone candle sat on, illuminated in its small, weak glow. His hair was a mess and his shirt was rumpled, a tired blank expression on his face, but there was no telling how Akatsuki's second in command almost collapsed with relief at the sight. To fight the founder of the Uchiha would mean the death of her here in Leaf. There by the table stood Itachi, as stolid as he was known for, eyes red and fixed on the giant green creature by the door.

* * *

_Hunter_


End file.
